


Metamorph: Monochromat

by andthekitchensink



Series: Metamorphoses [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Halloween, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthekitchensink/pseuds/andthekitchensink
Summary: When androids first start disappearing for no apparent reason, there’s no obvious signs of foul play, but then android bodies start showing up all over Detroit. Android life and death semantics aside, it would seem there is a serial killer on the prowl.Then, to make matters worse, one of the original leaders of Jericho suddenly goes missing without a word. Hank and Connors Mark I and II find themselves racing against the clock, with too much evidence and too little time.So... What do you do when you’re up against it? You bring in some reinforcements.





	1. Boys and Girls of Every Age

**Author's Note:**

> This little story takes place in the same ‘universe’ as my other fic, Metamorph. This is what happens when I have too many plot bunnies hopping around in my head, and one of my favorite times of the year comes around. Namely, Halloween. But since I'm not quite done with Metamorph yet, I had to take a small break from it and get cracking on this one. It'll be shorter, and hopefully all done just in time for October 31st. :) 
> 
> Read Metamorph first, if you want, but the gist of it is this (without giving too much of it away):
> 
> Hank and Connor (Mark I) are partners in every sense of the word except the entrepreneurial. 
> 
> Mark II was sent by CyberLife to aid in an investigation involving a deviant, and later on went deviant himself. 
> 
> Connor Mark II is asexual, the other one isn’t. 
> 
> Androids were granted citizenship just a few short months ago, and things are slowly changing for the better. Slowly, and...mostly for the better.

* * *

 

 

 _If I have to pick a month of the year that I’d rather get rid of, it would have to be September. Can’t stand it, hate it, from one end to the other it’s just a reminder of the fact that I’m still alive through some stroke of Kismet or whatnot, one year older than last September, and all I can ever think of is that yet another year’s gone by that my son will never get to see. I was born on the sixth, his birthday’s the twenty-third, and it used to be a thing. A father-son thing, a private joke between us, how September was better than any other month of the year, ‘cause it was our month. I haven’t done anything for my birthday since he died, not a single thing. It’s just one more day to get through, and just when September’s over, then comes_ **_October_** _. God-fucking-dammit._

 

_Piece of shit month, October. Not even a month between the date of my son’s birthday, and the day he died. He’d just turned six._

 

_This year marks his tenth birthday, if he’d had the chance to live it._

 

_Now, I’ve made my peace with what happened. I can’t change the past, and I can’t keep feeling guilty or it will eat me up from inside like it did the past three years. Still… Doesn’t make September any easier to deal with. I’m a mess. I can’t sleep. I avoid eating if I can, which-- isn’t easy when you have two android nannies keeping tabs on your vitals. I don’t know which one of them’s the worst. Sometimes they tag team each other - one of them looks at me, thinking I don’t notice, and the other one trots off to the break room and comes back with a cup of instant ramen. At least neither one of them’s made a big fuss about September. Or anyone’s birthdays._

 

_It’s kind of a joy to watch them work, though. They share the desk Connor was assigned back in December, when he worked out a deal with Captain Fowler to keep working the deviancy cases. This was after the Feds backed off. It’s a big desk, standard equipment for Detroit PD, but it wasn’t designed for more than one officer at a time. Do they give a fig? Not a single one. They sit side by side, their clothes the only thing distinguishing one from the other. Connor, my partner, that is, the original RK800, likes a bit of color. Not a lot, but just enough, like dark greens and darker blues, maybe a subtle or bright pattern to his tie. His successor, Mark II, is all about the grays and blacks. Sometimes he’ll surprise everyone, wear one of Connor’s patterned ties. They like to mess with people’s heads, that way. Play harmless but stellar pranks on their co-workers. For every day that goes by, the more they remind me of twins. Except for the fact that they’re essentially the same person, but...not at all, really. They’re the same, but different. Somehow, don’t ask me how, I don’t find it confusing. I think I should, but-- I don’t._

 

_Anyhoo. I was telling an anecdote. So, Connor will be working away on a tablet or something (doesn’t matter which one of them, but for argument’s sake let’s say that’s my Connor, the original one, Mark I) while his successor’s connected to the terminal typing up reports at a million blips per second, then one of them says something about this or that case (we have about a bajillion cases already, we don’t need more, but the Powers that Be never got the memo), and they...switch. One of them pushes back the chair, rolling out of the way while the other rolls sideways and boom. They slot into place, just like that, picking up where the other one left off. Tablets change hands, reference points shared, geographical markers, shit I’d have to trudge through for days on end. And they just get shit done. You’ve never seen multitasking until you’ve watched two androids handling ten cases at once, between them._

 

 _It’s the same on crime scenes. They split up, reconvene, we talk shop about the evidence, sometimes they swap places, go over the evidence a second time over in case either of them missed something (rare, but it happens). They both lick at evidence, which is a fucking nuisance. It was bad enough before I was intimately involved with one of them, but now I get all hot and bothered_ **and** _grossed out whenever I catch sight of that tongue darting out. Jesus Christ. Dunno how many times I’ve told Connor to stop putting evidence in his mouth, or he’s not getting any for a month. Does he listen? Nope. Instead I have two perfectly reasonable Connors telling me why it’s doubly pragmatic if they both analyze individual samples. I can’t argue with Mister Pragmatist. Either one of them. I can call bullshit as much as I want, doesn’t mean they’ll listen to me._

 

_Although… Connor may be all about efficiency and economy of movement and getting the job done with as little delay as possible, but he’s figured out how to have the cake and eat it too - where ‘cake’ is lick stuff off crime scene walls, and ‘eat it’ is naked fun times with Yours Truly._

 

_We go through a lot of mouthwash at the Anderson household. Let’s leave it at that._

 

_So. September 2039 rolls around, and I hate it. No news, there, but then all of a sudden androids start disappearing off the face of the earth. They’re on their way to work, or walking the dog, or running errands - you know, leading as normal lives as they want, while redefining ‘normal’ as we humans know it. Some live together, some don’t, some live in family units, some adopt pets from the animal shelter… Some take employment, some struggle to get a job, some can’t work due to PTS or other issues, mental, emotional, social… They’re people, is what I’m saying. People who want to be free, but doesn’t always know how to handle freedom. Not too different from the rest of us. Point being, they settle into their routines like anyone else, and when they’re suddenly gone, people notice._

 

_Before the month was over we had more than a hundred reports of missing androids, and all the witnesses said pretty much the same thing. ‘Imogen took her dog for a walk this morning, never came back, she would never leave without so much as a word’; ‘Tom loves running, he always runs in the evening, always wishes me a good night when he comes back, but it’s been two days now’; ‘I’m worried about my neighbour, her daughter never came back from the playground, she’s in such a state, I never thought androids could react like that’._

 

 _Different models, different manufacturing dates, different designs, different lives, all disappearing without a trace. We checked the residences, found nothing to link the disappearances, nothing to indicate foul play. Nothing. Everything was a dead end, and by the time October showed its ugly mug, I was sick and tired of coming up short at every goddamn turn. Bad enough that androids seemed to blink out of fuckin’ existence, but we had nothing to go on,_ **and** _it wasn’t just adult models. Children, too._

 

_Androids are superior to humans in almost every way: they’re basically walking, talking supercomputers designed with a specific purpose in mind. They’re durable, but not indestructible, and they’re resourceful, resilient - but the kid models are designed to be children. They need guardians to care for them, like any human eight-year-old. Human kids maybe run away, for whatever reason, but android kids don’t tend to stray too far from their loved ones even if bad things happen. I don’t know why, but that’s just the way it is: android kid models don’t just up and run away, which made their disappearances even more disturbing._

 

_At first glance, it looked like another android awakening, like the one we saw in 2038 - but these were deviants we were talking about. They had no reason to run from captivity, or escape an abusive situation, or fight for their lives._

 

_Either something had happened to make over a hundred androids go ‘Screw this shit, I’m outta here’ at roughly the same time (which would’ve been okay. Everyone’s got a right to reevaluate their lives and whatnot, and sometimes a lot of people get roughly the same idea at the same time. It happens), or...something else was going on that we just couldn’t see._

 

_My money was on the latter scenario, vague though it was. On October 5, I won the jackpot from Hell. The one time I want to bet on the wrong horse, a volunteer over at the old Hantz Woodlands project stumbles over an android arm sticking out of the ground._

 

 _Turned out it wasn’t just the one arm. It was_ fourteen android bodies _, stripped of their clothes, all in various states of disrepair. Limbs crushed, burn marks, signs of restraints, you name it, it had been done to them. All fourteen had two things in common, though - aside from being dumped in a mass grave. As if that wasn’t grotesque enough._

 

_One: Every single one of them had had their heads removed, and two: They were completely drained of blood. Not a drop of thirium left in them._


	2. Friday the 14th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Hank would tell you, September sucks all kinds of expletives: androids go missing left and right, *and* he's down with the actual sickness. October proves to be even worse. Not only do androids go missing, they're pushing daisies... or their own body parts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff and factual fright, all wrapped up in one short chapter. (Short for me, that is.)

* * *

 

 

_ Thursday, September 15, 02:14 AM, 115 Michigan Drive: home, sweet home. _

  
  


To say it was a dark and stormy night would be a bit of an exaggeration, which Connor tended to steer clear of except for those rare occasions where one wanted to achieve a certain effect. More correctly, it was a dark, rainy night, the third day of rain in a row. This in itself wasn’t uncommon for Detroit this time of year, but to borrow one of Hank’s more colorful phrases, it was a fucking pain in the ass. Connor didn’t mind the rain as such, didn’t mind getting soaked through, but what did bother him was visibility. Driving home in the middle of the night in the pouring rain, in a car almost as old as Hank was a bit of a hassle. A non-physical pain.

 

He pulled into the driveway as quietly as he could, hoping he hadn’t disturbed Hank’s sleep, and hurried inside with a quick few turns of car keys and house keys. Inside was dark, the tv off, the laptop closed on the desk. Sumo’s tail started thumping a happy rhythm against the floor the moment he stepped in, but the big dog was too sleepy to come say hi. Connor put away his coat to dry, leaving his shoes by the door to avoid dragging the rain further inside.

 

“Hey, buddy,” he said, kneeling by the dog bed, rubbing his hand over the top of Sumo’s big head. “Go back to sleep. No more guard duty for you, I’ll take it from here.”

 

It was their own, private in-joke. Sumo was a horrible guard dog, but Connor loved him just the same. Off to the bathroom then, to use the towel rack for the rest of his clothes - a quick check in the mirror, out of habit more than vanity. He knew what he looked like, but he liked to double check he was presentable. Bit irrelevant in the middle of the night, sneaking into bed. He could hear Hank coughing across the hall, and went to the bedroom instead.

 

Hank was a sight for sore eyes, even curled up under a mountain of blankets, wadded up paper napkins scattered over the bed. Two bleary eyes blinked up at him, looking miserable and defiant at the same time. Hank was not the first one to admit he was coming down with something nasty, even if Connor insisted a viral infection was wreaking havoc with his system. That is, until he metaphorically coughed up his lungs over lunch and it only got worse from there. “Honey, I’m hooome,” Connor singsonged, soft, quiet, grabbing one of Hank’s t-shirts from the closet. He preferred the loose fit for the context of bedtime. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

 

Hank coughed into his fistful of napkins, the wet, rattling kind that wouldn’t budge one inch. “You gotta change your repertoire,” he noted, wry, borderline sarcastic, but smiling nonetheless. “Get in bed already, you must be freezing.”

 

“You sure there’s room for me with all those blankets? I’m perfectly capable of moderating my core temperature, you know.” He teased, but did as suggested, crawling into bed and under the blankets. He scooted close as he could, analysing Hank’s status with a quick glance. Temperature running a bit high, but the fever had settled since earlier tonight, and the inflammation of his bronchi wasn’t quite as active - the miracles of medicine at work. Hank groaned, dabbing at his runny nose with one hand, the other worming its way under Connor’s body for purposes of getting closer. He made another disgusted noise when Connor stole a kiss from him, right on the mouth.

 

“We really have to have another talk about germs,” he complained, but not so invested that he pushed the issue. If Connor wanted to give him a smooch despite him feeling like roadkill, fine. “How did the search party go?”

 

And there it was, the million dollar question. Connor shook his head, listening to the wheezing gurgle of Hank’s breath. “The rain doesn’t help. We had five different groups in five different locations, based on witness statements…”

 

“Last known whereabouts, yeah. You didn’t find anything at all?”

 

“Only a rain hat, a mile away from the playground where Leila went. The YK500 girl?”

 

Hank nodded, stretching into a more upright position. “Single mom, also android, Ferndale district. Yeah, I remember.”

 

Connor shifted position as well, turning on the bedside lamp since they were talking. Sitting up, he crossed his ankles, hands clasped loosely over the blankets. The first thing Markus did when he heard about the disappearances was organize search parties. It seemed every night now, they went out looking for clues. Clues, or worse.

 

“Out with it,” murmured Hank, grabbing a fresh napkin from his stash, blowing his nose. By the sound of it, his sinuses weren’t getting any better. Still clogged. Hank wasn’t a happy camper to say the least, grumbling about the disgusting nature of the human body. Connor leaned in to press an encouraging kiss to his shoulder.

 

“It’s…” he said, hesitating. He didn’t want to diminish the anomaly, but he didn’t want to make it a bigger deal than it was - it wasn’t something he could ignore. “The hat. If she’d decided to stay with a friend and forgot to tell her mother, would she have left the hat?”

 

Hank made a noise at the back of his throat that said neither yea or nay. “Kids lose things all the time. They don’t mean to, but if something catches their attention they’re off and running. Things get left behind that they would...never want to lose. Toys, clothes, backpacks...”

 

It was Connor’s turn to insinuate his arm between Hank’s shoulders and the mound of pillows behind him; let him do the leaning into, for a change. “You’re forgetting she’s a YK500. CyberLife’s ‘ideal child’ model. That’s what bothers me. Not that children behave in certain ways, but whether or not Leila would.”

 

“Mmmrrnh,” said Hank, for a given value of elocution, relaxing into Connor’s chest. “Everyone following your security measures?”

 

“I hope so. We’ve spread the word as well as we can. Everyone knows to keep their eyes open, stay in groups of two, minimum...not take unnecessary chances. Change up their routines… But…” He sighed. Even though he didn’t technically need to, sometimes it simply felt good to breathe. It had become an extension to his communication skills, an add-on that allowed him to express things he couldn’t with just words. He’d never stopped to think the drawing of breath could have emotional value, until he found himself doing it.

 

“But they’re just people,” Hank filled in for him, tilting his head to look at him despite the awkward angle. “And you can’t control people... No matter how much you want to.”

 

He was right, of course, which only made Connor want to protest even more. If he could just stress the importance of personal safety enough, get it through everyone’s thick, autonomous skull that this could be dangerous… They had more than thirty cases now, and there was no end to his own sense of urgency - but try convincing independent, happy androids that this was abnormal…

 

“You know’m right,” Hank teased, voice hoarse and low and full of mirth despite the topic itself. It was no laughing matter for either of them, but Hank had a way of dialing down Connor’s bloodhound tendencies. Bad jokes was one of his strategies, and gentle if cheeky jabs was another. They tended to be more elaborate when he wasn’t ill and awake way past his bedtime. He’d kept him up long enough.

 

“I know,” said Connor, reluctantly, and turned off the light. He kissed Hank’s tousled head of hair. “I’m just not officially acknowledging that you are.”

 

“Mhm.” Hank sounded happy enough, which meant he was happy enough. If he wasn’t, he had a way of letting everyone involved know about it. It was one of the many things Connor had come to appreciate about him. Initially he had found him to be abrasive, unstable, that social interaction wasn’t one of his strengths, and he hadn’t been  _ wrong _ , exactly. Hank was abrasive, he was a volatile man with a short fuse and a near zero tolerance for bullshit - but he was intelligent, he was street smart and book smart, he could figure out where a suspect was heading and cut him off while Connor was left chasing him and never quite catching up. He spoke his mind, not because he didn’t appreciate the social ramifications of not playing nice, but because he valued the lack of bullshit. If you asked him of his opinion he would give it to you, uncensored. If you didn’t like it, you shouldn’t ask for his opinion.

 

“Have you been able to sleep at all today?” Connor asked, neatening the blankets, tucking them closer around Hank’s chest to keep the air out. It was bound to feel chilling, by comparison.

 

“No,” Hank sighed, stretching his neck from side to side and then leaned his head back over Connor’s shoulder rather than the pillows. Another sigh. “The moment I’m about to doze off I either start coughing or sneezing, and I can’t focus enough for movie marathons or whatever… So all I’m left with is lying here thinking about all the crazy monkey sex we could be having if I wasn’t a big blob of phlegm and bacteria.”

 

Connor smiled: Hank sounded so completely miserable at the thought of losing out on ‘crazy monkey sex’ (whatever that meant), that Connor couldn’t help cooing at him. “Does that mean we’re past the fucking-like-bunnies phase?” He purred, stroking along the uneven line between Hank’s beard and three-day-stubble, down the side of his neck.

 

“Not if there’s a God,” Hank forced out, emphatic.

 

Connor nodded, once, slowly. Hank’s heart rate was slowing, despite the topic. He moved his hand further down, caressing the curves and dips of Hank’s clavicles instead; he’d had a long day, he was ill, he needed the rest. “The concepts aren’t mutually exclusive?”

 

“Two sides of the same coin…” Hank explained, eyelashes fluttering as his eyes slowly shut. His bronchi gave a few aborted twitches, but not enough for more than a small wheezing cough.

 

“Alright. Well,” said Connor, lowering his voice, and leaned his temple to Hank’s forehead. It was a bit of an awkward angle for him, but awkward angles were of a very low priority level right now. “When you get better, we’ll have all the animalistic sex you can muster.”

 

“...hn. Youbetcha…you crazy monkey...”

 

“Good night, Hank,” he whispered, settling in for a night of sleepy cuddling, and monitoring Hank’s vitals every hour on the hour. He barely got a response - just Hank’s contented mumbling, and deepening breaths.

 

Perhaps not all was well with the world outside, but their microcosm was A-OK. Viral infections notwithstanding.

  
  


***

  
  


_ Friday, October 14, 9:00. Detroit Police, Central Station, 1301 3rd Avenue. _

  
  


The conference room was filled with police officers, beat cops and detectives, android and human. Fowler wanted an update on the latest development, and he wanted as many eyes and ears on this as logistically possible. He couldn’t call everyone in, but everyone on duty and not tied up at new crime scenes were expected to show up and pay attention.

 

Hank was up front, walking everyone through what they knew so far, while Connor took care of the technical thingjigs; Mark II by his side, taking notes in case anyone had a new angle they could pursue. It’s how they worked cases - divide and conquer. The white screen behind him was divided in half, one side covered from side to side and top to bottom with crime scene photos. The other half was just as disturbing, if Hank was the one to judge: sixteen registered identification photos of emancipated androids, four across, four rows down. It was a gruesome collection of images, more like something out of a nightmare dictatorship - a mass grave found in Detroit, Michigan? It was a bit much to stomach even for the senior investigators, but there was no way around it. They had to see the photos. Really, truly see them. 

 

“October 5th, 4:05 PM, a Mr Derek Sellers called 911 about a body in the north-west part of the old Hantz Woodlands. He’d literally stumbled over a hand sticking out of the ground, initially thought it was a bad joke. Detective Collins and Officer Miller were first on site, and soon discovered that the hand was attached to an android body. Fourteen bodies in total, all decapitated.” He swallowed against a dry patch in his throat, glancing as Connor rotated the images up on the left side of the board. Chests bashed in, limbs crushed, faint flickers of electricity here and there from a battery not entirely fritzed.

 

As if on cue, Connor Mark II continued his train of thought. “As you can tell by the photographs, some of the victims are more damaged than the others, showing evidence of torture as well as restraints. There are signs of struggle, possibly from resisting capture.”

 

Officer Chen raised her hand, datapad at the ready to take notes. Mark I nodded for her to go ahead. “Can you really be sure who they are? Without their heads…”

 

Hank pressed his lips over his teeth, shook his head. “It makes identification difficult, but not impossible. With the reports we have of missing androids, we can cross reference bio components, repairs done, spare parts, upgrades. Anything traceable, we’ve traced. We have fourteen complete bodies in total, but if you look at the individual components, we’ve been able to identify twenty different androids. They’ve been...” Hank swallowed, the taste of bile at the back of his throat.

 

“Picked apart and put back together,” Connor Mark I filled in. “Every part of an android has a specific model or serial number embedded, be it on the left side cheek or the back of the forearm, soles of the feet, and so on. We can trace manufacturing date, records of purchase, if there is any. Being able to scan them has made our jobs easier. If you can call it that.”

 

Hank made a noise at the back of his throat. “It’s a start. But no one becomes a cop ‘cause it’s easy.”

 

There was a murmur of agreement from those assembled, the mood lifting by a fraction. No one there had gone through training thinking police work was a cakewalk. It took guts, and wits, and instincts, and above all else, a lot of hard, hard work. The notion was a distraction from the implications of someone out there going Dr Frankenstein on Detroit’s android population.

 

“Most of the androids are adult models,” Mark I went on, bringing up another photo, this one depicting the victims laid out on the ground. All fourteen bodies tagged and ready for further analysis. Then a photo of the factual, twenty victims: disassembled at the morgue and laid out on individual slabs, put back together in their original format, as much as could be reassembled. “Eight males, ten females...and two child models, both female. You’ll find age estimates in the file-- It’s preliminary, but based on the condition of undamaged components and casing, they range from three to ten years of age. We’ve identified sixteen of them, as you can see in the file.”

 

“Do you think they’re all deviants?” Fowler asked. Someone had to ask, and who better than the captain himself? The distinction was crucial: if this were ‘just’ machines, then they had no case. Discarding broken equipment was no crime. But if this was what it seemed to be, awakened androids slaughtered, picked apart and put together, then dumped…

 

Both Connors and Hank looked each other in the eye, one from the next to the other. Gone was the brief stab at levity in the face of horror. Hank ran his hand through his hair, letting out a soft hiss through his front teeth. “If this is, shit, if this is someone’s idea of fun-- doing this to them? If they weren’t deviant before, I’d say this is more than enough to trigger the process. We’ve been able to identify sixteen of the missing androids, but there’s more--  _ body parts _ than we can account for. We need to identify those four unidentified ones. If there’s a chance they’re still alive somewhere...”

 

“We need more data before we can be absolutely sure,” Mark II concluded. “There’s more than a hundred missing android reports so far, with more pouring in each day. This could be indicative of something... worse.” Worse than a modern day Frankenstein’s monster, worse than a mass grave in the middle of Detroit, worse than androids disappearing off the face of the earth.

 

“With that in mind...” Mark I dragged in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He found a sense of relief in the simulation of breath, sometimes, even though he didn’t strictly need air. He looked at the image on the board, of the fourteen bodies laid out with the same respect as for human remains. “If there is someone out there abducting androids, the public needs to be informed of what’s happening. The android community is growing increasingly aware of the potential danger, and we’ve tried to spread the message to as many as we can, but… We need all eyes and ears on this, human or android.”

 

Captain Fowler agreed: they were past the point of no return, and a press conference was in order. Unfortunately, his press conference came too late. That same afternoon another grave was found, this one on the outskirts of the West Riverfront Park, in an area recently upgraded by way of landscaping. New trees and bushes far as the eye could see. The still loose soil made for easy digging.

 

October 14, fourteen new bodies were dug up, all bearing the same silent witness to a crime so macabre the media dubbed it Friday the Fourteenth out of sheer shock. They all showed the same signs of restraints, struggle, torture; drained of thirium, and not a single one of them had their head still attached.

 

Worse yet, this time it wasn’t a stroke of luck or chance that led to their discovery, but one of the android bodies having dug itself out of the shallow grave by sheer determination and the last remaining sparks of its broken batteries. The reports sent ripples throughout Detroit, of fear, of desperation, not only through the android community - for how much of a stretch was it, to think whoever was doing this to countless androids, who looked like humans, walked like humans, talked like humans and bled like humans...wouldn’t at some point look to the other side of the fence and wonder if that grass wasn’t greener after all...


	3. The Dying Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detroit Taxi brings forth the lead everyone wished for, but no one wanted. The stress is taking a toll on everyone, not least of all Hank, who is not unlike a pressure cooker about to explode. Connor tries to deal with it to the best of his abilities, including showing off some of his lesser known talents.
> 
> In a different part of town, someone faces yet another disappointment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay of this story! I was confident I was going to have it wrapped up by Halloween, but then life and work happened, and my ideas fermented into something a bit...different. Stay tuned for more where this came from.

* * *

 

_ The more you looked at the bodies, the more disturbing a picture they painted. We had 28 of them - if you just looked at the complete packages - but once CSI looked them over with Connors’ assistance (both of their assistance: divide and conquer) it became clear that what we were really dealing with was a jigsaw puzzle of body parts. J Doe #1 had a torso that belonged with the left arms and hands of J Doe #18, and #18’s legs belonged with #4’s torso, but the thirium pump regulator belonged to someone not yet recovered, and so on - which meant there was likely to be more graves, and that godforsaken theory no one wanted to go with looked more and more plausible. That all the missing androids, or most of them, were linked to this case. Someone out there was butchering androids, and we had so little to go on it gave me a rolling, gnawing migraine that never quite went away. _

 

_ We didn’t know where to put them all. The City Morgue didn’t have enough storage for what looked to be adding up to well over fifty bodies all jumbled up, but we had to put them somewhere. So many bodies, so many different parts, and we were just beginning to see the iceberg. The morgue began to look like a war zone, with bodies put back together as well as could be managed without all the pieces. Bit by bit, bio component by bio component. _

 

_ The week following the press release and the discovery of the second grave was filled with the gruesome work of matching the missing androids with the identifiable biocomponents, and the knowledge that we couldn’t even tell their families what had happened. So far all we had were parts of their loved ones. Without their heads, there was no telling if they were dead or alive, or beyond repair. An arm you could replace, a pump regulator wasn’t too expensive with insurance...but the mind? If the memory core had been damaged somehow, or the processor… It hit too close to home for my taste, after December 30th 2038, and what happened to my partner in the aftermath of the shooting.  _

 

_ All of Detroit’s police felt the urgency, whether they’d warmed up to the idea of artificial life or not. For a week, we pushed on, hoping that the next bit of evidence would be the needle in the haystack. That week, the missing persons reports seemed to level out. It was a respite and a curse: yes, great, maybe the disappearances were ending because the android community was taking precautions, people out there were paying more attention, the perpetrators were likely watching the news and knew they’d messed up by not digging deep enough graves. But it was also frustrating, it was chilling, to wonder what the perps would do now. Would they grow desperate? Would they lash out, kill their captives? _

 

_ We got our answer just in time for the weekend, but it was not an answer anyone wanted. _

 

***

 

_ Saturday, October 22, 10:43 PM, outside the Wells residence, 104 New Lafayette Road _

  
  


Connor watched as his RK800 colleague stepped out of the Detroit Taxi cab parked outside the Wells residence while Hank paced back and forth, on the phone with the cab company. They needed to get into the cab’s computer, access its GPS data, but the AI couldn’t authorize such access on its own, despite having called emergency services. 9:51 PM, it had requested assistance to deal with an unresponsive, possibly injured client. When EMS arrived on the scene, it became clear just what was the issue - a woman in her thirties, lying on the floor of the cab like a ragdoll, shot in the head.

 

They passed each other, swapping places; both glancing at Hank, who cursed at being put on hold one more time. “The tire tracks only go back so far,” said Mark I. “See what you make of it.”

 

Mark II concurred with a single nod, his lips thinning out, widening across his face. “Victim’s Ava Wells, age 32. It… She’s…”

 

Her partner Gregory reported her missing two days before, along with her android son Thomas. Through some error in judgment, the attending officer had failed to see the significance of a human woman and her android boy going missing, and told Gregory to wait until the next day in case they turned up somewhere - or perhaps the officer hadn’t taken the word of an android seriously. Connor didn’t want to speculate (neither one of them did), but if this had anything at all to do with the android graves… It could mean they finally had something to go on, leads to follow up - but at the cost of a life. A mother, who would never come home again, whose son was missing and alone, possibly having witnessed her murder.

 

“I’ll have a look,” Connor said. If he had to guess, neither he nor Mark II felt comfortable interviewing Wells’ partner, but with seniority came a certain sense of responsibility. “When you’re done with the tracks, could you get started on the GPS? I’ll join Hank, talk with Gregory.”

 

Connor looked on as some of the tension seeped out of Mark II’s face. They shared tight-lipped smiles that had nothing to do with joy or comfort, and went their separate ways; Mark II to follow the tire tracks, see if he found something his predecessor had missed, and Connor went to the cab. Standing in front of the open door he scanned the exterior for any available evidence, but found very little. This time of year was characterized by a gripping chill and more rain than anyone wanted, meaning most people opted for wearing gloves, and even those who didn’t rarely touched the automated taxi cabs. You just stepped in and out, and took a seat. There would be more trace evidence inside, no doubt, and true enough: a scan revealed plenty. The touch screen was covered in fingerprints and thumbprints and palm prints, depending on the chosen function. They could trace the last transaction, see where it led.

 

There was a limited amount of trace on the floor of the cab, which allowed him to step inside, careful not to disturb the deceased. Ava.

 

Her name was _ Ava _ .

 

He crouched beside her on the floor, tilting his head for analysis. No less than five points of interest revealed themselves:

 

  * Ava Wells, 32 years old, died approximately 4 hours ago.
  * Gunshot wound to the head, middle of forehead, burns and gunpowder residue indicating a very close range.
  * A fine mist of thirium covering the front of her jacket, right hand side.
  * Broken fingernails and bruised knuckles, indicating a struggle.
  * Fractured jaw and occipital bone, left hand side. Swelling and bruising consistent with perimortem injuries: the cuts to her skin only barely beginning to close up.



 

“She was shot in the head, point blank,” he told Hank, who was still on hold with the cab company.

 

“You know, Connor told me the same thing. First thing outta his mouth, and now you too,” Hank said, gritting his teeth. “Sometimes I don’t know if you go out of your way to spook me, or if you’re just having a bro’ moment.”

 

Connor would’ve smiled if not for the context. He had his eye on an anomaly that CSI hadn’t found. Ava had one of her feet tucked behind her knee, partially covered by the coat. She seemed barefoot at first glance, but she was a small woman with small feet. It was easy to miss the shoe that had slipped off her foot and got tangled under her coat.

 

“We’re telepathic,” Connor quipped, dry as kindle, but added another ten cents just the same. “We have similar priorities. We think the same way.”

 

“I  _ know _ ,” Hank groused, stepping in closer for a look. “Found something?”

 

“An ankle boot. Genuine leather, rubber sole, zipper. Sturdy, ten years old but kept in excellent condition. A bit worn, but she’s buffed it with shoe grease recently to protect it from the rainy season.”

 

Hank looked him in the eye, giving him a look that was both admiring and skeptical. “That’s a lot from a single shoe.”

 

“You can tell a lot by people’s shoes,” Connor said, and this time he couldn’t keep a small smile off his face - there and gone again in the blink of an eye. Focusing on the task ahead. “It’s covered in evidence. Soil, gypsum, minerals and metals… Thirium.”

 

“Blue blood…” The question Hank asked without asking hovered in the air between them: whether she had been attacked by an android, or bore witness to an assault on an android in close proximity.

 

Connor touched his index and middle finger to the sole of her boot and licked at the grainy mass sticking to his fingertips. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Hank’s eyes widen - they’d been over his procedures in collecting evidence a multitude of times, and struck a compromise. He analyze evidence in real time, saving them valuable lab hours, and when they call it a day the first thing he does is brush his teeth and rinse his mouth. Connor considered himself the clear winner of this argument, but he let Hank feel like they’d mutually agreed on the best course of action. Besides, it was fun watching the lieutenant squirm a bit every time he put a piece of evidence in his mouth. It was cute, and a welcome distraction from the added stress of working these recent cases.

 

A chill went down his spine, like a million tiny needles rattling along his spinal column. “It’s her son’s blood. Thomas Wells. It’s only trace amounts, but it’s him.”

 

Hank blanched right before his eyes - and then the DT tech came back on the other end, giving him the go ahead. The AI confirmed access through the speakers, soft voiced and pleasant. Hank looked like he was going to throw up.

 

“Hank,” Connor said, stepping out of the cab. He pressed his arm, firm but gentle, knowing the death of Hank’s son weighed heavily on his mind this time of year. This case was poking old wounds, in the worst possible way. “It’s a very small amount. Not consistent with fatal injuries, even for a child model. We don't know what happened.”

 

Hank nodded, thanking the technician and ending the call. “Chris! Get Connor, look over the computer. We’re going inside!”

 

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Officer Miller called back, hurrying to go see where Connor had gone - or how far down the street. 

 

***

 

Gregory was a big man, made for physical labor, construction, haulage. Being one of the early models of TR400 he positively dwarfed the kitchen table where he sat, staring at the edge of the crocheted placemat in front of him. He looked out of place, to Hank’s jaded eye, but at the same time he sat in that chair as if he’d sat there forever, never moving a single limb. Like it was his chair, his spot at the table, because he was right where he belonged.

 

The kitchen was decorated with little mementos, old and worn but well loved, like the placemats. They looked like something Hank’s grandmother could’ve made by hand, and he had a feeling they were just that: a collection of family heirlooms, delicate and frail, and precious beyond reckoning.

 

“I don’t understand…” Gregory whispered at the placemat, eyes lowered, fingers trembling when he reached out to smooth the lace trim. “Why would-- Why would anyone  _ do that?! _ ” He lifted his eyes, dark and mournful, and with that motion his eyes regained some strength. “It’s like some kind of sick joke! Put her in a cab, send her home?  _ Like that!  _ Like she’s  _ trash _ someone left behind!”

 

Hank pressed his lips together, fingers laced and heels of his hands resting against the edge of the table. He couldn’t say why. Some people were sick, twisted products of whatever pop science theory was trending at the moment. He couldn’t say why, and he didn’t. “She was last seen at the sports center, with Thomas?”

 

Gregory gritted his teeth, but nodded. The anger was fading back to fresh regrets. “Tommy loves swimming. She’d take him there every Thursday, unless she got a placement.”

 

Connor pulled out a chair, taking a seat beside his partner. “She was a kindergarten teacher.”

 

“Temp jobs, mostly,” Gregory confirmed, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Jobs are hard to come by when no one’s having kids these days… But she… She got involved in a lot of volunteer work, with android orphans. After last November...those who survived the camps, those who’d survived life on the streets after the YK500 was launched…”

 

Before the android revolution, it wasn’t uncommon for android children to be kicked out of their homes once their owners got bored with them and bought the newest model instead, or adopted human children, or got pregnant. Perhaps they figured it was kinder to send them off with a packed lunch in their backpack and tell them to go on a great, big adventure, than the alternative: exchange them for a new model at the store, sell them, or take them to the junkyards.

 

If you asked Hank, he would’ve said that of all the android models, the child ones were the worst. He had nothing against androids with souls, or artificial hearts and minds and spirit, but the very idea of creating something with the mind and heart and soul of a kid, in a kid’s body, to be sold and traded and possibly abused, completely at the whim of someone twice their size… Defenseless, guileless, trusting, docile, innocent - as CyberLife had designed them. Artificial children, the ideal child: at the mercy of their owners, completely dependent. At least the adult models could defend themselves, fight for themselves if push came to shove… What could a six-year-old do? An eight-year-old? Kick someone in the shin?

 

No, Hank didn’t like the idea of android children at all. It was just... cruel, on a completely different level than simple (for a value of ‘simple’) android slavery.

 

“She adopted Tommy,” Hank said, having reviewed public records. “He was part of one of the programs she volunteered for.”

 

Gregory nodded, reaching up his massive hands to wipe at his face. He looked tired. Exhausted, wrung out like an old dish rag. “Tommy wasn’t coping at all, after Camp 5. He was one of the last ones to be let out of there, and he had to watch-- all his friends go into those boxes and never come out, and he… He closed himself off from the world, after. Ava told me he was completely unresponsive for months, that she’d sit with him and read to him, from old books. Real books, with paper. And...sheet music. She’d sing lullabies and love songs from the 19th century, old-time-y stuff. Gospels. Innocent and pretty, about love and freedom and being brave and...” He shrugged. “Little by little, he opened up to her. She became his mother. Simple as that. He was her son, her baby. They were-- wonderful, together. You should’ve seen them running around the house, playing games...”

 

Hank turned his head, Connor meeting his gaze. Over the course of her volunteer work, they’d bonded, to the extent that she adopted him, took him home, made a home for him. Hank swallowed against a lump in his throat; Connor went ahead in his place. “We believe Ms Wells may have become a witness to the attempted abduction of her son. You have heard of the missing androids?”

 

Once again, Gregory nodded. “I’ve helped searching, whenever work permitted. And the graves! It’s all they talk about on the news. I didn’t want to think that’s what had happened. I don’t-- I can’t...”

 

“What’s Tommy like?” Connor asked, keeping an eye on Gregory’s stress levels: the question was just the thing to bring his numbers back to pale blue. “Do you think he may have run away, hid someplace? Does he have friends living in the area he might’ve tried to reach?”

 

“He’s shy.” Gregory sighed, head tilting this way, that way. “Quiet. He’s terrified of uniforms, and red lights. He’s more likely to run away from police cars than to them-- didn’t matter how much Ava told him red light is just another wavelength. He’s, he’s the best at hide-and-go-seek. The  _ best _ . She could look for him for hours, and he’d only come out when she started freaking out.” The memory brought a small smile to his face. It almost reached his eyes. “And the possum game. He loves that game.”

 

“Possum game?” Hank frowned, intrigue taking the place of empathy and the phantom pangs of paternal grief. He had an inkling where this was going, but he didn’t like it one bit.

 

“Ava wanted him to be safe. Feel safe, no matter what. So she invented new games, in case...of emergencies. Crazy stuff. Gave them funny names, told Tommy he wouldn’t ever have to be afraid if he just played those games. Like...playing possum. Play dead until the Boogeyman goes away, then run and hide.”

 

“She taught him to play dead,” said Hank, making sure he heard him right. “Christ…”

 

Gregory took another deep breath, looking calmer despite everything. “Sometimes it’s the only way to survive.”

  
  


***

 

“We need to bring them in, Jeffrey,” Hank said, arms crossed over his chest, shifting his weight from foot to foot and unable to stand still. Connor and Connor stood to the side, Mark I with his hands hanging by his side, Mark II having clasped them behind his back; neither one of them entirely certain what they could say to diffuse the situation. Hank was in a strange mood since finding Ms Wells, and Captain Fowler was beginning to show the toll taken by the recent weeks of answering to the higher-ups and having to explain why one of his most respected, highly qualified team of investigators wasn’t making any progress. Didn’t matter that they  _ were _ making progress now, it had taken too long for anyone to be entirely pleased with the proceedings.

 

“ _ We _ don’t need to do anything,  _ Hank _ ,” Fowler said through gritted teeth. “Now sit your ass  _ down _ . All of you!  _ Jesus _ Christ… We’re already spread thin enough as is, and you want to bring in not one, but four-- what? ‘Consulting’ investigators? Assets? Infiltrators? What the Hell are they supposed to  _ do _ that my officers can’t?”

 

Everyone sat down, the Connors trading silent looks with one another. Hank was fuming, but the less he drank the less volatile his temper. It was possibly the only reason Fowler was even listening to him. “It’s no secret the android community doesn’t trust cops. I get by well enough, but only so far. I can’t be everywhere at once,  _ we can’t _ do everything, everywhere, at the same time. This takes priority, I get that, but even if you give us a dozen officers and detectives, they won’t get the job done any quicker if they can’t  _ talk _ to people!”

 

Mark I leaned forward, hands resting on his knees, looking between the captain and his partner. “They’re trusted by the community, respected. They have access in a way that Detroit PD doesn’t. Even if not all androids agree with how Markus and the others run things, there’s no denying that.”

 

Fowler pushed out air through his nose and leaned back in his chair. It seemed too small for his stature and bulk, even when he finally nodded and some of the tension seemed to lift from his shoulders. He was willing to listen. “I’ll give you that, but… You’re saying it’s all connected to the youth center where Ava Wells did her volunteer work.”

 

Over the course of the weeks and months following last November, the Detroit City Center for Youth had become a hub for a variety of charity work, including a refuge for androids - the Jericho community was growing larger every day, but they only had so many houses, and though they would seem the obvious choice from an outside, human perspective, not all androids wanted to join them. They had their reasons, just like Connor had his reasons after the revolution. He’d stayed at homeless shelters, not because he didn’t relate to the androids of Jericho, but because he was struggling to figure out just where he fit in.

“All of the children passed through the mentorship program,” Mark II confirmed. “We’ve found a similar connection between the homeless shelters organized by the same charity, and the missing adults. Not all of them, but enough to warrant looking into.”

 

“We need to talk to the people at the center,” Hank said, leaning back heavily in his chair. “To the employees, the volunteers, the androids who come there, stay there.”

 

Connor glanced at his partner, and he didn’t like what he saw one bit: stress responses popping up left and right. That vein at Hank’s temple that was hardly ever visible to the human eye, his elevated heart rate, his blood pressure creeping steadily upwards. He was a good man, full of empathy for the victims he came across in the line of duty… But this had to stop. There had to be a difference between empathy and becoming so personally invested it was taking a physical toll.

 

They got the go ahead from Fowler, who ordered them all to get out of there and not come back until they’d had at least five hours of sleep. The clock was ticking, but Fowler was a lot of things besides a captain of Detroit Police and a former military officer - he was also a family man, and a friend. Connor could tell by the look on his face he could see it too: Hank was heading for a brutal awakening if he didn’t slow down. ‘Rude’ just wouldn’t cut it, it would be brutal. Like an aneurysm.

 

***

 

That nagging something at the back of his mind palace haunted Connor through the night. Not even coming out of standby at 3 AM did he feel better: he didn’t feel rested, didn’t feel like the case made any more sense - if anything, he only had more questions after sorting through data. Why send home the body of a witness? Ava Wells had been nothing if not easily identifiable, and positively covered in evidence. If he had been running any kind of operation involving the abduction of androids and (more perplexing) the reassembly of their bio components, he certainly wouldn’t have made the mistake of kidnapping a human, much less  _ deliver her intact body _ right into the hands of investigators.  _ He _ would have dismembered her, at the very least, to avoid identification. Removed her teeth, things like that, barring more resolute means of disposal. If all you needed was a bathtub and the appropriate chemicals…  _ No _ . It didn’t make any sense, and imagining what one might do if one was a homicidal maniac left him feeling incredibly uneasy. It was as if they had two  _ modus operandi _ in what was clearly the same case: the abductions, the bodies of those abducted, the lack of thirium and the removal of the head… There was something about it that just did not fit with the rest. For being the most advanced prototype to come out of CyberLife’s Research & Development, he sure felt...inadequate. 

 

Hank wasn’t in bed, but at least he was up, which meant Connor didn’t have to wake him up to bounce his theories off him. Or, the lack thereof, more like it. Connor sighed and disentangled himself from the sheets and blankets, padding barefoot into the living room where the tv was on. Hank was watching the old black and white  _ Frankenstein  _ from 1931, a Universal monster movie classic if ever there was one - fitting, in all the wrong ways. The sound was on low, barely audible; Hank heard him before he reached the back of the couch and leaned down to kiss his cheek. He ran his hands down and across his chest in a backwards hug. He didn’t say anything about the empty beer bottle on the coffee table, or the one dangling from Hank’s hand. Two beer bottles were better than five, even if their presence spelled out defeat in the face of...everything. And Hank looked defeated, where he sat slumped, with his heart rate up and his blood pressure just on the edge of hypertension stage 1. He needed to rest, relax, not-- talk shop, every hour of the day. Connor changed his mind.

 

“Come back to bed, Hank,” he murmured over his ear, hands caressing over the center of his chest, along his sternum.

 

“Can’t sleep,” Hank groused, lifting the bottle to his lips for a small swig. It seemed defiant, daring Connor to have an opinion - which he did. Hank liked to point out he had an opinion on everything. He simply chose not to rise to the bait: he had other priorities.

 

“There are other things we can do, you know…” he purred, suggestive without stooping to lewdness.

 

“Not interested.”

 

“Some less relaxing than others,” Connor went on, pretending he didn’t hear that. “You’ve been clear of that viral infection for weeks now, and you still haven’t told me what you meant with crazy monkey sex. I’m curious.”

 

It was the wrong thing to say, a miscalculation on his part. Hank shrugged out of his embrace, barking at the tv to pause playback and brought down the bottle with such force it sent foaming tendrils of beer over the table and carpet. Connor backed off, catapulted by an internal momentum. Hank was furious, whipping around on the couch, nothing short of contempt in his eyes. “Not. Interested. I am not in the mood,  _ Connor _ , goddamnit, what part of that can’t you  _ compute _ ?! I don’t want to come back to bed, and I  _ don’t want _ to have sex with you. Fucking  _ energizer _ - **fucking** - _ bunny! What the fuck _ did CyberLife do to you, fucking  _ upgrades _ , my ass!”

 

Connor’s face burned. Though he knew, rationally speaking, that it was only a matter of time before Hank had a meltdown of some sort and that he’d likely end up in the line of fire, that didn’t change the fact he felt degraded. Embarrassed and/or humiliated: he wasn’t sure which of the two, or if he felt both at the same time. Was that even possible, or would two closely related emotions cancel each other out? He watched as Hank ran out of steam, or breath - or both - and took one neat step forward. He wasn’t easily intimidated, and he knew Hank: he might have an impressive bark, but when it came to his personal issues he was a puppy - albeit with sharp claws and sharper teeth.

 

“You don’t talk to me like that, Hank. Not since we became friends, and you’re not going to start now.”

 

Hank lowered his eyes; Connor took that as a good sign. He wasn’t so angry he wasn’t listening - Connor could deal with that. He inclined his chin, straightening his spine, rolled his shoulders. That settled, he went on. “Alright. No sex. I wasn’t suggesting exclusively sexual activities, though.”

 

“Bull. Shit. ‘Other things’ we can do?” Hank protested, but his voice was changed. Less barking, more woeful. “Like what?  _ Yatzy? _ ”

 

Connor’s lips stretched into a slanted smirk, and he came around the couch to sit down right there next to his grumpy ol’ human. Hip to hip, thigh to thigh, his arm going across Hank’s shoulders. He breathed in, one long, deep breath, considering his approach. Playful innuendo had backfired, so he’d better pick another strategy. He settled on a more sincere path to brutal honesty. Sweeping things under the rug wasn’t how he functioned, but he’d given it a try over the past weeks and found it sadly lacking. Ignoring matters thinking they would go away was an exercise in futility, patience notwithstanding. He’d been patient enough.

 

His left hand found Hank’s left, fingers folding around his palm whether he welcomed the intimacy or not. “I have given you all the space you can shake a stick at,” he said, soft and quiet. Sumo was upset enough after the brief but loud outburst, and Connor felt an obligation to his canine friend, to take care of his human to the best of his abilities. “But the more space I give you, the more you push me away.”

 

“I’m not trying to push you away--!” Hank exclaimed, but shut up under the weight of Connor’s pointed look.

 

“Then what was that, just now? A declaration of your undying devotion? Don’t patronize me. You’re pushing me away, and it’s going to stop. Right now. You think you have a valid reason to, that’s fine, but I don’t care. You’re not alone in this, any of it, and I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me, so you’d better deal with it. Alright? We’re a team. Remember? A  _ great  _ team.”

 

Hank looked at him for a long, long moment, his eyes world weary and blue in every sense of the word, so blue they were almost gray. But then his mouth twitched, the ghostly wisps of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. “The best.” He gave a great, deep sigh, and leaned into Connor’s side, accepting defeat. Connor kissed the side of his head.

 

“Now will you tell me what’s going on? Not-- everything,” he said, to clarify, if vaguely. “But specifically this, tonight.”

 

Hank shrugged, eyes wandering to the tv screen. “My dad loved this movie. He loved the book, he loved the concept, anything and everything even remotely related to the Modern Prometheus, he  _ loved _ . Any chance he could, he’d go  _ it’s ali-i-i-i-ve…  _ Drove me insane, growing up.”

 

Connor nodded, using silence as a means to coax more out of him. It worked. “We used to joke, me and mom. Saying that he looked kind of like Boris Karloff, only not as handsome. And he… I mean, he was a big guy. Tall, big bones, viking blood. You think Swedes are mild mannered, quiet folk, but you wait until you piss off one of ‘em.”

 

“He was an immigrant,” Connor said, just to confirm the official records.

 

“Came here in the eighties, a happy tourist trekking across different states. It was supposed to be just a quick tour of Michigan, then on to visit relatives in Canada, but he ended up falling in love with the place. He came back the next year, went through all the applications, all the paperwork, everything. He met my mother… And the rest is history.”

 

Hank was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t talk about his parents often, but he was usually more fond about his reminiscing. Proud and fond. “You look just like him. You have the same bone structure. Your mother’s nose and eyes, his eye color.”

 

“His temper, too…” Hank shook his head, eyes turning towards the ceiling. “He wasn’t a violent man. He felt bad about swatting  _ flies _ , ferchrissakes, but… You should’ve heard him when he got angry. The vacuum cleaner was his nemesis. That thing could drive him batshit insane. It was  _ glorious _ .”

 

“Did he curse whoever invented the hoover?” Connor was intrigued, processor blipping away, and fast.

 

“Like a pirate. Or a viking chieftain, I guess.” Another heavy sigh. “I wish I could swear like that. I mean, not-- Not the cursing itself, but-- the words. I don’t remember half of it. He didn’t really speak a lot of Swedish at home, he was too proud of being an American citizen.”

 

Connor smiled the smile of an imp, or some kith and kin thereof. “Give me an example?”

 

Hank blinked, turning his head to look him dead in the eye. “...what? Uh. Umm… dumb-- dummsugeryevel, or...I dunno, hell-vette. Fuck if I know. I don’t remember.”

 

Hank might say he didn’t remember, but Connor knew he was onto something. “He called it that? The vacuum.  _ Dammsugarjävel _ ?”

 

And just like that, Hank’s eyes lit up like fireworks. “Yeah. That’s the one. And he’d combine all kinds of swearwords into one long rant. It was epic.”

 

“ _ Helvetes-jävla-dammsugar _ **_jävel_ ** _ -från- _ **_helvete_ ** ?” Connor suggested, positively beatific.

 

Hank started grinning, a light in his eyes that hadn’t been present for weeks. “Yeah… Cute. If it wasn’t creepy as Hell.”

 

But Connor didn’t stop there; he  _ knew _ . Silly and trivial as it may seem to others, to be swearing in a language Hank hadn’t heard for years and years, it was just the ticket. It was just what the doctor ordered - counterintuitive though it was, Hank’s blood pressure lowered, his heart rate evening out, so Connor did the best he could with the tools he’d been given. He swore and ranted like a pirate, or perhaps a viking, until Hank was laughing so hard that happy-sad tears were streaming down his face. He wiped his cheeks, wheezing with soft little giggles, and for a while they just sat there leaning into one another, grinning. Hank’s arm wriggled its way into the nook between couch cushion and the small of Connor’s back; Connor leaned his cheek on top of Hank’s bedhead.

 

“How many kids are missing, now?” Hank asked, quiet. He was calmer, but by no means relaxed. He was unlikely to truly unwind until this case was closed, and Connor could honestly say he couldn’t estimate when that would happen. It didn’t bode well for either of their mental states.

 

“9, with Thomas Wells. Almost 18 percent of the total. We’ve recovered five, but only-- pieces of them. Put together.”

 

“It doesn’t make any sense,” sighed Hank, rubbing up and down Connor’s forearm, seeking the creature comfort of the tactile variety. “Why plonk all that evidence in our lap?”

 

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Connor concurred. “That’s why I got out of bed in the first place, to share the frustration. Why would they risk whatever it is they’re doing? There has to be something I can’t see. It’s as if they  _ wanted _ us to find her.”

 

“Maybe that’s it,” said Hank, entertaining all possibilities including his investigator’s intuition. “Maybe we can’t see the full picture yet, but if that’s the simplest explanation, why not run with it? They wanted us to find her, or they wouldn’t have sent her home, wrapped up in a neat bow.”

 

“That’s the sloppiest paraphrasing of Occam’s razor I’ve ever heard.”

 

Hank grinned like it was going out of style. “Yeah, yeah, don’t get your boxers in a twist. What are those, anyway?” He lifted the bottom of the t-shirt for a sneaky peek. His eyes widened with some kind of admiration. “Is that lace? Are you wearing  _ lace panties _ with my Knights of the Black Death t-shirt?!”

 

“Lace  _ boxers _ ,” Connor clarified, for the record, not one iota of shame in him. “I figured you’d have to notice them at some point. They highlight my derriére.”

 

“That’s a fancy word for ass,” Hank teased, but he wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t in the mood. He patted aforementioned  _ derriére _ . “It’s a very nice one, and yes they do.”

 

They kissed, brief but full of affection. Connor brushed his thumb over Hank’s jawline. “Let’s go back to bed, try to get some sleep. Hm?”

 

Hank turned off the tv with a great big yawn, patted Sumo’s sleepy puppy head, and followed Connor back to bed. Connor’s tactics worked out in the end, and he didn’t even have to use his big voice.

 

***

 

Alfred was a quiet man of a mild, easily pleased disposition, who believed in the great mysteries of life and the vast possibilities of science. Just look at quantum physics; just look at artificial intelligence! The past ten years he had been so grateful to be alive in this modern age, to see the wonders of creative imagination and engineering.

 

He himself was an engineer by trade, recently retired after a productive life. He had a loving family, a beautiful house - granted, it was his wife’s family home, but that didn’t make him any less privileged. Some of their neighbours thought otherwise, of course. To them he would always be from the wrong side of the tracks, like people used to say when he was a young boy. Not to mention how he came from the wrong side of the border, according to some… Blame Canada, eh? Land of poutine and ‘questionable gun laws’. Not that he didn’t own guns, himself. He had several of them, and licences for every last one. He loved to hunt, just like his wife, Laura.

 

Now, Laura… She never cared about all that nonsense about tracks or borders or bloodlines. She thought he was sweet, and cute, and a complete nerd (and she was right!). She didn’t care about her parents’ disapproval of them going out, said they’d warm up to him eventually. She’d been right about that, too. Forty years now, they’d been married. Anniversary next week, kids coming on over to celebrate with them, and if anyone deserved a big to-do, it was her. 

 

Laura’s memory wasn’t what it had once been, but she still had her moments of vivid clarity, she was still an opinionated, strong-willed woman who could discuss world events with the Mayor himself over dinner, and win him over to her cause. She was a philanthropist, like her parents before her, and if anything got her fired up, it was social injustices - she was a force of nature, slowly crushed under the bootheel of Alzheimer’s. It broke his heart to see her fade away…

 

“Alfred, darling?” ...and speaking of the lady of the manor, there she was at the top of the stairs.

 

“Yes, dear?”

 

“Have you seen John? I can’t find him. He didn’t wander off somewhere, did he, with all these psychopaths running around?”

 

She sounded so worried. After the kids had moved out, John had become the apple of her eye. Nothing had been quite the same since the accident.

 

“I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,” he called, stepping away from his workbench so she could see him at the bottom of the cellar steps. She struggled with staircases now; her knee wasn’t the same anymore. “Maybe he’s taking a nap in the library. He loves the fireplace-- Have you checked there?”

 

“Oh.” Laura wrung her hands. “Oh, no, I… I’ll let him be, then. What if he’s having a nice dream, and I barge in and scare him half to death?”

 

“Probably best, dear,” said Alfred. “Could you make some coffee, maybe? I’ll be up soon.”

 

“You’ll come upstairs soon? Oh, good.” Laura smiled at him, and for a moment Alfred felt like they were college sweethearts again, their whole lives ahead of them. “You can’t keep working all hours, Alfie, you’ll run yourself ragged. I’ll make some coffee. And toast, with marmalade!”

 

“I won’t be long, love,” said Alfred, and returned to his workbench and the little swiveling chair. He checked his instruments, his tools; his scanner, all the numbers were coming up green. Good. Good…

 

“I really hope this’ll work, son… I’m sorry it’s taken me so long.”

 

Alfred looked at the peaceful, sleeping face of their John, with his golden hair and narrow face. There was a family resemblance in the line of his nose and the width of his mouth. He had Laura’s eyes, which had always been remarkably big and so blue they could crush a man’s soul if she was in that mood. If things were different, he could have been their son. If he weren’t a PL600.

 

There was only one thing left to do: Alfred ran the boot sequence through the interface connected to John’s orange colored LED. Time to bring him out of standby mode. Time to get him back online again.

 

John’s eyelids twitched, pale eyelashes fluttering like hummingbird wings; John’s big eyes opened, pupils dilating as they looked up into Alfred’s face. He watched as the narrow chin began to tremble and the eyes widened with fear and welled up with tears that rolled fat and heavy down his cheeks. “...mom? Where’s my mommy?”

 

Alfred’s shoulders slumped, and he heaved a heavy sigh. He had failed again.


	4. House on the Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The leaders of Jericho are brought in, and suddenly things begin to unfold. A pattern is emerging, and the evidence points to the higher echelons of society - but can it be that simple?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long time coming, but here it is, finally! Expect more to come, sooner rather than later. I think I've worked out all the deets in my head to make for swifter writing. :)
> 
> Do you have any theories as to what's going on? Leave a comment below, if you want to share.

* * *

 

 

Sunday, October 23, was the day when everything changed. Connor brought in Jericho’s leaders, all four of them, and the idea was that they’d work alongside the DPD in an official capacity. Connor Mark II and Chris went to the Detroit City Community Center and Shelter for the Homeless while Mark I brought everyone up to speed; Hank and Ben Collins went to the fancier side of town for a chat with the good people of Sherwood Forest - where the late Ava Wells had been unceremoniously dumped into a taxi cab and sent on her way. Their strategy was simple enough, and in keeping with how they’d approached every damn lead so far: divide and conquer, multitask, and stay-the-fucking-course. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, but it had to be done.

 

As long as Hank could remember, Sherwood Forest had been one of the richest parts of Detroit, and even with the economy being what it was, this was an area that, at the very least knew how to keep up appearances. Renfrew Road in particular was one of the prettiest streets he’d seen in a long time, curb appeal far as the eye could see: period buildings from all over the architectural map, and perfectly landscaped gardens and yards that looked just like the area’s moniker. It was like something out of legends, or fairy tales. So pretty it made your eyes hurt, and not even the rain seemed to lessen the effect, but added to it.

 

The Banks residence was no exception, rising from the snow in quiet majesty, its brickwork crusted with snow. On the front porch, several wrought-iron lanterns alongside an expertly carved assortment of pumpkins set the tone for the coming Halloween.

 

“This the place, then?” asked Collins as they looked up the impressive drive at what was essentially a mansion set in the middle of the affluent shade of American suburbia.

 

“It’s the address we got from Detroit Taxi... This is where someone gave Ms Wells her one-way ticket.”

 

Ben grumbled; Hank mirrored the sentiment with an unhappy frown. Up the drive they went, all the way to the front door. It was Hank who rang the doorbell and put on a professional smile for the woman who came to the door: a woman of indefinite age, the way some people seem to hover between imaginary age brackets set several decades apart. She could’ve been in her mid-to-late forties, or her sixties, even older. Her temples were more white than blonde, and she wore glasses, traits which she shared with people from all over the spectrum - but her hands were ever so slightly patchy with sun spots and visible veins. She wore her age with poise.

 

“Yes?” she said, removing her glasses to get a better look at them.

 

“Mrs Banks? I’m Lieutenant Anderson, this is Detective Collins - we’d like to ask you a few questions regarding one of our cases.” Maybe Hank wasn’t the most prim and proper copper around, but he could play nice with people if he had to. And this was just following up on a lead, so far. It was the best lead they had.

 

“One of your cases? May I see some identification, please?”

 

Hank showed his badge and ID, Collins did the same, and Mrs Banks nodded slowly, looking from one of them to the other. “Yes. Of course, do come in. It’s just that you can never be too careful these days - and this time of year, mischief and mayhem in equal measure!”

 

“Yes, ma’am. Is your husband home?”

 

“Oh, no,” answered the lady of the manor, as it were, with a brief but warm smile on her lips. “He has an office near Roosevelt Park. You’d never know he’s retired for all the work he’s still doing. Lectures, builds, prototype work… I keep telling him he’ll work himself into an early grave if he doesn’t watch it.”

 

She led the way into the house, which was as impressive inside as it was from the outside. The front door opened up onto a hallway with a vaulted ceiling, at the center of which an old, solid oak staircase stretched towards the skies, backlit by a tall window that doubled as a piece of art. Hank could imagine the view of the outside world from that window, overlooking the green gardens and blue skies of the neighbourhood. The beams running along the ceiling reminded him of a church, even if he hadn’t set foot in one for several years. It was eye catching, sleek, built to last for generations. To the left and right of the entrance, tall, open arching doorways branching off into the different parts of the house - to the right, kitchen and dining room, and who knew what else lay beyond; to the left, a sitting room complete with floor to ceiling bookshelves and a fireplace.

 

Just like Hank had expected, Mrs Banks showed them into the sitting room, the fireplace alive with the soft crackling of embers and small flames licking at the air behind a safety glass. “Would you like some coffee,” she said rather than asked, commanding the room with an ease of sheer presence. She graced them with an open, salt-of-the-earth smile that didn’t quite fit with the grandeur of the house. Perhaps Hank was negatively biased (but at least he knew this was probably the case), but he’d always thought privilege and entitlement went hand in hand. Not quite so in the case of Mrs Banks. She bore all the outward traits of old money and old blood, but she seemed perfectly unphased talking to them. She seemed at ease, open, but they were her guests - and as hostess, she was calling the shots. They were having coffee whether they liked it or not, because it was the done thing.

 

“Sure. Ben?”

 

“I could commit first degree murder for a cup, ma'am.”

 

"Let's not resort to such extremes, shall we? And, please, call me Laura." Mrs Banks raised an eyebrow at that colorful turn of phrase, but soon disappeared across the hallway with brisk, confident step. The coffee was done in a matter of seconds, thanks to what was no doubt a state of the art piece of equipment. “Alright, gentlemen,” she said, setting down a large silver tray on the coffee table. She started serving them each a cup, in order of rank. “How may I be of service?”

 

I was a very civil affair, one cup each set in front of them like a rudimentary game of Connect the Dots. Hank sipped his coffee, out of courtesy more than anything. “Have you noticed anything suspicious in the neighbourhood the past week, ma’am?”

 

Mrs Banks clasped her long fingers delicately around the fine china cup and saucer. It was plane, bone white with a golden band along the rim. “Suspicious, how, Lieutenant?”

 

“Unfamiliar cars, people, or familiar ones for that matter. Delivery vans coming by on the wrong day. Friends or neighbours behaving out of character.”

 

“No. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything’s business as usual around here. No more hustle and bustle than normal. Now, if you don’t mind, please do get to the point. Why are you here, in my house, of all places? You’re not canvasing the entire street.”

 

She wasn’t wrong about that, and her own lack of beating around the ol’ bush was what sealed the deal for Hank - he could play ball. “Last night a woman was found dead in a Detroit Taxi cab parked outside her residence. GPS logs show that she was put in the cab right here, practically on your doorstep.”

 

Mrs Banks stared at him, eyes like saucers now that she learned of the reason they were there. She set her cup down. “Oh. Murdered? Oh, how awful.” She shook her head, shoulders hunching as some of the ingrained poise gave way to doubt. A murder, in her neighbourhood? She’d probably never heard of such a thing before.

 

And then she said something Hank didn’t expect. She sat up straight again, the look in her eyes on the verge of imploring. “She’s not one of the androids, is she? The abducted ones? It’s horrendous! What some people think they can do just because they’re not human! It’s so  _ cruel _ . And the demonstrations! How anyone can think android mass graves is something to celebrate is beyond my comprehension! What are we,  _ savages _ ?”

 

Hank traded looks with Ben, who looked as grim as he felt. “I couldn’t agree more, ma’am. We’re doing everything we can to solve that case, and we have reason to suspect the dead woman is related to the disappearances. She was last seen with her adopted son, an android - older model, looks about seven or eight years old, brown hair, blue eyes. Evidence suggests she got in the way when someone tried to take him. Ms Wells is dark blonde, blue eyed, average height and weight, in her thirties. Ring any bells?”

 

“No… You mean the boy’s missing? You think he was kidnapped, like the others?”

 

“We don’t know that, ma’am,” Collins filled in. “But we’re working off the worst case scenario.”

 

Hank sipped his coffee, watching the woman with a critical eye: as much as he felt a renewed sense of hope whenever a fellow human aimed any kind of recognition towards the android population, he couldn’t help but wonder why she seemed so personally invested. Was it a pet project of hers? Some high society idea of charity for those poor, poor androids?

 

“I have a photo of the woman and her son,” he said, pulling a print from his coat pocket. “I need to know if you recognize either of them. If you’ve seen her before, anywhere, anytime. Anything.”

 

Mrs Banks nodded, willing if not outright eager to help. It was obvious she wanted to help, but perhaps she felt at a loss as to  _ how _ . She held the photograph between her long fingers, stroking the edges with something like motherly empathy in her eyes, as if she felt a kinship with the woman and her boy.

 

“Oh, poor girl. No, no I-- I’ve never seen them before. I’m sorry. Oh, how dreadful…”

 

The photo went back into Hank’s pocket with one smooth gesture and a tuck or two. The three of them lifted their cups for a sip.

 

Mrs Banks sighed deeply. “What is the world coming to? It’s been almost a year since the president suggested they might be a new form of life. Since the leader, what’s his name again-- Markus! Since his demonstrations outside the Hart Plaza camp, and I thought the riots were bad enough! I keep telling John not to go outside, but the poor dear can’t be cooped up here all hours. He’s miserable.”

 

“John?” Collins beady eyes were bright with attention, and Hank couldn’t help but feel a frisson of energy. Maybe this was a new lead. A possible witness.

 

The woman-turned-matriarch gave a bittersweet smile. “When we bought him, he was just another PL600, just a housekeeper. Convenient, efficient, polite… But the longer he stayed with us, the more I started seeing him as part of the family. He’s absolutely precious. My Alfie says I’m a silly filly, but I know he feels the same. I don’t know what we’d do without our Johnny.”

 

“Do you think we could talk to him?” Hank asked. “If he’s in…?”

 

“Yes, of course.” Mrs Banks pushed to her feet, using the armrest to steady herself. Her left knee seemed unsteady, seeming to want to bend the wrong way, but once she was upright you wouldn’t know anything was wrong. “I’ll see where he’s got to. Help yourselves to some more coffee.”

 

She left the sitting room, leaving twin sets of cop senses tingling. It was Collins who spoke up first. “Is it just me, or does it sound even more condescending when she’s talking about an android as her baby?”

 

“Her own kids have flown the coop, maybe she’s trying a bit too hard.” Hank shrugged. “We’re all five-year-olds to our parents. Maybe it’s a good thing she treats him the same way.” With all the shit he’d seen, maybe a bit of motherly doting wasn’t so bad.

 

Ben shrugged, reaching for the pot of coffee. “Depends what ‘Johnny’ has to say about it, I guess.”

 

Hank smirked, holding out his own cup for a refill. Might as well. “Since when does anyone’s parental units give a shit about what their kids think?”

 

Just then there were two sets of footsteps approaching, and the obviously proud Mrs Banks tugged a more reluctant surrogate son into the room with her. That in itself wasn’t so strange: androids, like most people, didn’t have much faith in the police, whether it came to their willingness to help, or the ability to do so. One thing that Hank had always struggled with was how CyberLife not only seemed happy to settle for a dozen face templates or so, but they didn’t see any problem with using those same templates across different models of android. For someone who’d always prided himself on being good with faces, not necessarily names, it was a step in the wrong direction - so many identical faces, with nothing but cosmetic choices to tell them apart. And this particular one, John, looked exactly like one of the leaders of Jericho - blond hair, narrow face, and a set of enormous, blue eyes to match. Standing side by side, the two of them almost looked like mother and son - if not for the yellow LED flashing at the young man’s temple.

 

“John, sweetie, this is Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Collins, they’re with the police. Gentlemen, this is my Johnny.”

 

The android in question looked between them, fingers wrapped around the knitted cuffs of his cardigan in a way that made it seem too big for his frame. Mrs Banks nudged his arm, at which he took a step forward, eyes darting to the floor and up again. It was as if he had to be reminded of basic human manners, having forgotten them in sheer fright. “...hello.”

 

“Good to meet you, John,” said Hank. For some reason, he felt as if he was treading thin ice. He could almost hear it crack beneath his feet, somewhere far, far away. “Mind if we ask you a few questions about last night?”

 

John shook his head and took a seat beside his owner. Mrs Banks smiled at him, brushing her fingers over his hair, which sparkled like gold in the light from the fireplace. John kept his eyes downcast, hands in his lap.

 

If he didn’t know better, Hank could’ve sworn John looked terrified, not only of them, but of the woman sitting right beside him, smiling so warmly, looking at him with nothing but pride.

 

It was one of the most unsettling things Hank had ever seen.

 

***

 

In a different part of town, at the Detroit City Community Center and Shelter for the Homeless, sometimes referred to as the D3C, Connor was having one awkward encounter after another. He and Chris Miller had talked with everyone from the nice lady in charge to the admin assistant, to the hard working people who came there to help, and already they had come across people who recognized Connor, who were happy to see him, hugged him, shook his hand, wanted to know how he was doing, getting on, and all he could do was play along with the help of Mark I’s memories.

 

It was so surreal, to be talking with people, humans and androids alike, who knew him, but didn’t know him at all. It was a case of never ending déjà vu and mistaken identity, and it grated on him in a way he couldn’t fully express. Miller didn’t say anything until they were back in the car, going over statements on the automated ride back to the station, and he did so in a quiet, muted way, dark eyes glancing across the passenger seats.

 

“I didn’t know Connor used to stay there.”

 

Connor nodded. They were fast approaching the end of October: since last November, the young human had become one of Mark I’s closest friends. Perhaps Chris felt he should’ve been told, but far as Connor knew, it wasn’t a topic his predecessor ever brought up. No one knew but Hank, and even he didn’t know the details.

 

But then, Chris surprised him. He had a way of doing that. “I feel weird. Finding out like that? Like this? If he wanted me to know, he would’ve told me, right?”

 

Connor tilted his head, deciding on a somewhat neutral response. “It’s not something he likes talking about.”

 

Chris shrugged, as if to say it was all in the past, didn’t change their friendship. “Looks like he made a good impression, though. You know, or people wouldn’t have talked to us like that.”

 

Perhaps he was right. Maybe Connor’s past visits to the D3C last year lent them a bit more leeway in the present time, a bit more familiarity. He still felt like a lying piece of drill bit. It couldn’t be helped. His bit of subterfuge got them what they came for.

 

***

 

Early that afternoon, the ten people directly involved in the investigation sat in the conference room adding to the data already up on the board. There were sandwiches and coffee enough for everyone whether they could partake or not (Hank figured that if he ran the risk of being prejudiced, he’d rather err on the side of caution and bring in too much food rather than assume androids didn’t/couldn’t eat just because his partner didn’t). It wasn’t long until a picture started forming, and it was enough to fill the room with a buzzing energy. Maybe they couldn’t see the whole picture just yet, but they were beginning to see more of a pattern. It felt as if they were finally getting somewhere.

 

To one side of the screen was a map of the Detroit area, little blue dots marking every last known location of the missing androids, and red ones for the mass graves and Ava Wells.

 

Both the Banks’s residence and the D3C were within the perimeter, as it were, but as Mark II and Chris had found out at the community center-turned-homeless shelter, a significant percentage of the missing androids had passed through its system, suggesting that the disappearances weren’t strictly random. Whoever was behind it all could have ties to the center.

 

They ran background checks on everyone working there, whether they had worked there for years, or temporary jobs. They checked the volunteers, old and new. They checked the androids who stayed at the shelter, going backwards through the records. While they showed what Connor had indicated before, that not all androids wanted to give their real names or serial numbers, it did bring out several common denominators:

 

None of the missing androids had disappeared while in the center’s system. As long as they stayed there, they were safe. And among those who had been confirmed as abducted, they had all left the shelter very recently, almost all of them part of a program largely funded by a particularly interesting foundation - a charity set up by none other than the lovely Mrs Banks and her high society friends.

 

As for the androids, the only real network they had were other homeless people, androids and humans alike (and the two groups tended to steer clear of each other when possible, due to old scars and grudges). They were just starting a new life, in a new neighbourhood, a new job, a real job. As if they weren’t vulnerable enough before, without a place of their own, it seemed particularly cruel to take advantage of their situation. Just when things were looking up, they were preyed upon.

 

And then there was the fact Ms Wells had been one of the volunteers, and her son was part of the shelter’s rescue program. Tommy was still missing, but the evidence clearly showed he’d been injured some time before Ava’s death. They’d been together, and the last known location of Ms Wells was Sherwood Forest, right outside the Banks residence.

 

Had she stumbled upon something suspicious and set off to confront the chairwoman face to face? It was possible, but unlikely. Josh was the first to point out what everyone was thinking: she wouldn’t have brought her son along for such a meeting.

 

Another possibility crackled in the air, one that no one wanted to admit fit the grotesquery of the case so far: That someone out there was sending a message, and Hank for one thought it came through loud and clear. 

 

“‘Look what happens when you get too close’.” Hank scoffed at the board, jabbing at his tablet to bring up the list of androids missing, names and serial numbers highlighted and cross referenced with the shelter and the graves. “Fucker’s playing with us. I bet you this week’s paycheck it’s deliberate. Ava Wells was supposed to be found, and the evidence all points back to the Banks family.”

 

“Banks hasn’t returned any of my calls,” Collins added in dry tones. “What part of ‘urgent’, ‘murder investigation’, ‘please call’ doesn’t he get?”

 

And just then, a confluence of events led to yet more revelations:

 

Officer Chen knocked on the door of the conference room, bearing news. The deceased, Ava Wells had no next of kin on file, but after a bit of digging through records, she’d found something significant. Mr and Mrs Banks had four children, one of which was a daughter named Aveline, born 2005. At the age of 18, she’d left the family home to travel all over Canada. Around that time, she took her father’s family name, perhaps to distance herself from all that affluency. It wasn’t so hard to imagine a young woman wanting to make a life of her own, on her own terms.

 

At the same time, one Alfred Banks came walking down the hallway opposite, asking to speak with Lieutenant Hank Anderson, blissfully unaware that he was about to receive news of his daughter’s death.


	5. Motherly Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things begin to unravel, and though plenty of things come to light very quickly, Hank can't escape the sinking feeling they're still not getting anywhere. They're going nowhere, and fast. Connor knows just the thing to get his batteries recharged, as it were. 
> 
> Meanwhile, time is running out for Tommy - wherever he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story keeps evolving in my head. Saying anything more would be telling ;) but I might go back to make slight revisions. If I end up changing something significant, ie not just minor details, I'll make notes on them in the relevant chapters.

* * *

 

 

Interrogation room #1 was as bleak and hopeless as ever before, with its cold lights glaring from above, and the polished metal table and chairs the only thing distinguishing it from an isolation cell. Hank set down a ceramic mug of freshly brewed coffee from the break room and pushed it towards the diminutive man sitting on the wrong end of the table.

 

Alfred Banks, age 66, an engineer, now retired - but right here, he was a father first and foremost. More than anything, he was a father unable to comprehend the death of his daughter. Hank sat down across him with a mug of his own. He wasn’t a suspect, not at this stage, and this wasn’t an interrogation but an interview. Everything was being recorded, as per procedure, but he hadn’t been charged with anything, and he could speak freely. It just seemed like a better place to talk, rather than sit out in the bullpen for all and sundry to witness his grief, and while Hank had expected a more visceral response (going by his personal experience of losing a child), he also knew grief had many faces. Some people fainted at the news of a loved one’s death, others acted suspiciously, nervous, jittery. Others yet reacted just like Mr Banks, with a quiet, blank look on his face, and his eyes searching for answers in every face he passed. He had his glasses clutched in his hands, cleaning them with the edge of his shirt. It was as if he couldn’t process the news. Not yet.

 

Connor, Simon, Ben and Chris were on the other side of the glass wall, watching; Markus and Josh had gone to the sports center to see if they could find something the police had missed, while Mark II and North continued working through data. They had gone so long stumbling through the murky depths of this case, and all of a sudden people were seemingly dropping out of the sky. Things were beginning to unravel, and this just might be their golden ticket.

 

“Do you know why Ms Wells and her son were in your area? Was she coming over to visit?”

 

Mr Banks shook his head. In the overhead light his gray hair sparkled, but his eyes were dull. “No, she… We haven’t always been on the best of terms, she… She’d call us, every now and then. She and Laura have a difficult relationship, and that hasn’t gotten any better these past few years. But she, she was coming to our anniversary!”

 

The older man looked up, a brighter, happier glint in his eyes at the thought of it. It was poor comfort, but sometimes you had to grasp at straws. “We’re celebrating our 40th, this weekend. All the kids are coming over, we… I was hoping we could all have a good time, together. Like old times...when the kids were kids, and…”

 

“So she wouldn’t have come to see her mother?” Hank asked, neutral, careful. He wanted to know why Mrs Banks had said she didn’t know the woman. Why pretend like you didn’t recognize your own daughter’s picture?

 

“No, sir. I’d be lying if I said they’ve traded anything but polite phrases since, well, since the androids started coming awake.”

 

***

 

Connor watched from the observation room, quietly listening to Mr Alfred Banks telling Hank about his daughter in stuttered, fractured sentences. He was calm on the outside, but Connor scanned his vitals every now and then just as a precaution. His heart rate was erratic, oxygen levels not entirely optimal from his shallow breathing. He was shocked, obviously, naturally, but he showed no signs of physical trauma. Only emotional, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious just looking at the man. He  _ seemed _ calm, but like that simile about the swan, you wouldn’t know his feet were paddling frantically underwater unless you had a closer look.

 

Alfred told them a common enough tale of a family drifting apart, of teenage rebellion growing into resentment in adulthood: Aveline had always been the outspoken one, out of their children. She was their youngest, and their loudest, their most independent, and somewhere along the way Aveline had become something of a thorn in her mother’s side. She would openly criticize her charity events, not just to family members, but to benefactors and friends in high places. He particularly remembered a fundraiser back when Aveline was sixteen, seventeen, where she handed out spreadsheets to the guests, detailing exactly what their money  _ could _ be used for - more worthy causes than handing out scholarships for already privileged children. Laura had been outraged, publicly humiliated.

 

He painted a picture of a relationship that could have gone beyond the point of salvation, until Ava left to pursue her dreams. She would come home for the big holidays, and things were calmer then. In the case of Laura and their daughter, it seemed distance, separation, made their relationship stronger. For every time Ava came home, it seemed they could patch things up. When Laura first began showing the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, Ava was the first to insist she go see a doctor. She recognized the signs for what they were, not simple forgetfulness, or signs of growing old. If she hadn’t been so stubborn, they would never have gone in the first place.

 

And then the androids began developing something like sentience, back in 2018, and everything changed for the worse again. Perhaps not realizing it herself, Ava was a chip of the old block when it came to empathizing with those less fortunate, and she had felt strongly for the deviants ever since that household model took a girl hostage. To her, it was obvious he had acted out of desperation, not defending his actions as such, but she could imagine the pain he had to have gone through to go to such lengths. Laura made the crucial mistake of saying the police were right to shoot the damn thing, ‘you don’t threaten a child, period’. She didn’t care about his ‘feelings’. And that, as they say, was the last straw. Alfred could only try to understand why it became such a huge deal. They’d had worse arguments before, and they’d always come ‘round. In any case, this time around they hadn’t heard much from her since last August. They knew she lived in Michigan, still, though she didn’t tell them about her life like she used to.

 

_ “...but she was coming to the party. She promised she would come.” _

 

Connor could only imagine how corrosive their relationship must have been, to cut almost all ties with one’s family over a difference of opinion. Back then, not even CyberLife knew for certain whether androids were developing a sense of identity or if they were simply mimicking life a bit too well, if bugs or glitches were behind it all, some...costly malfunction, spreading like a virus. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Aveline’s instinct about the deviants were right: they weren’t  _ just _ machines. More to the point, he agreed with her thoughts regarding Daniel, the housekeeper/childcare provider who had completely lost it after finding out he was going to be replaced like last year’s model. Daniel had been desperate, and resorted to a very desperate, very tragic course of action. To his left, Simon stood very, very still, watching the old man intently.

 

The problem lay elsewhere, the way Connor saw it. It seemed as though he wasn’t the only one thinking along the same lines.

 

_ “Your wife thought they’re just machines, and your daughter was convinced they were people. Something like that?” _

 

Alfred nodded, cradling his cup of coffee to his chest.  _ “Something like that, yes.” _

 

_ “So...how does  _ Johnny  _ fit into this? Household machine, or household slave?” _

 

Whether it was the way Hank used the diminutive form of the name, or the fact he outright called him a slave, but it sparked a reaction. Mr Banks’s pulse went through the roof. His eyes flashed with anger.  _ “No! He’s like a son to us! He’s a caretaker, we bought him for Laura, she needs help...remembering things. He’s been a godsend, she wouldn’t be the same without him!” _

 

_ “Like her own daughter? She didn’t remember her when we talked, this morning. Didn’t see any of Ava’s pictures around the house, either. What does that mean, exactly?” _

 

Hank could be compassionate with witnesses and members of the family; he could be kind and polite, but if he could smell something fishy he wasn’t just going to let it lie.

 

The look on the older man’s face said it all: there was a pervasive sadness in his eyes that seemed to break through some invisible barrier. The lines of his forehead furrowed with it, and he sighed, and told Hank everything - about the Alzheimer’s, about the woman she used to be, the woman she’d become, how she’d become depressed after all the kids had flown the coop, that she had been fully aware of losing her own mind and fighting it every step of the way. These past two years had been the worst. They’d bought a PL600, to help her, as a caretaker. Alfred had picked the model for its specifications, didn’t pay much attention to the rest. As time went on, Johnny had turned into a companion, her most constant friend. He never left her side, and through their friendship, she had seemingly dug herself up from the mire of her own mind. She was a different person when he was around, becoming more and more protective of him, more doting. When he started showing signs of deviancy back in December last year, Laura found a new understanding for what the androids were going through. She set up a charity, a collaboration with the Detroit City Community Center and Shelter for the Homeless, to specifically help the android population. She was adamant that they needed a safe place to stay, just like anyone else, and maintenance, spare parts and blue blood.

 

Mr Banks felt that it might have been an attempt to indirectly apologize to her daughter, to show that she’d changed her opinion, but it was too little, too late. He still had contact with Aveline every now and then, but that too had been tenuous at best. They had burned too many bridges already.

 

Connor could see it in the subtle creasing of Hank’s forehead, that he could feel it too: it felt like they were missing something, something right there in front of them.

 

_ “Is that why there were no pictures of your daughter?” _

 

Mr Banks sighed, brushing a shivering hand across his forehead.  _ “It was too painful for her. And then she started forgetting… She does that. If she sees something and doesn’t remember who it depicts or what it means to her, she hides it away. We used to try and put things back in their place, but even Johnny stopped eventually. It’s easier not to upset her. She should be happy, feel in control, as much as possible.” _

 

He went on to say that her pain medication only aggravated things. It was as if they completely stripped her of any authority. It was horrible. You never knew what kind of person you’d be coming home to: the woman you loved since college, a total stranger, or a hollowed out, docile shadow of the woman she’d been.

 

At least, through her illness, she and John had grown closer. She started calling him Johnny, he called her Mother. He could stay with them as long as he wanted, deviant or not. It didn’t matter, in the end. He was still their Johnny. He was irreplaceable: when he’d had a tumble down the stairs a while back they’d spared no expenses getting him proper care.

 

On the other side of the glass, Hank sipped his coffee, blue eyes piercing and bright above the rim of the mug.  _ “I have to ask this, Mr Banks. How would you describe Johnny’s relationship with your daughter, inasmuch as he had one? How does he feel towards her?” _

 

Alfred hesitated, taking a large gulp of coffee before finding the words to respond.  _ “There’s no love lost between them. Ava couldn’t understand why he’d want to stay after he became a deviant, Johnny resents her for suggesting he should go… He’s on Laura’s side. Always has been. He’s very protective of her _ ...”

 

***

 

The interview was terminated at 3:30 in the afternoon, the team reconvening to share intel. Mr Banks left the station with one of Hank’s old fashioned business cards clutched in his hand, promising to call if he thought of anything else that might be important. Mark II and North had reviewed the evidence on file, Josh and Markus had returned; nothing new came of the trip to the sports center, just corroboration of what they already knew: they practiced swimming and diving for about an hour. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing amiss, no one behaving strangely while they were there. It was business as usual, far as the staff were concerned. Markus hadn’t found anything new, no traces of them past the nearest bus stop, and they had already checked the public transport CCTV. They’d headed into the city, not Sherwood Forest - the complete opposite direction.

 

“Back to the shelter?” Josh suggested, looking at the IDs up on the projected screen.

 

Chris shook his head, tapping the side of his tablet. “The manager said Ava had turned down shifts at the shelter lately, wanting to focus on Thomas. He was, quote, ‘going through a rough patch’. Having difficulties getting readjusted to family life, that sort of thing.”

 

Mark I agreed. “It matches Gregory’s statement. Thomas was experiencing high stress levels, so she invented games for him to cope with potential danger.”

 

“Fears,” Hank corrected him, and looked between all of them, all these faces suddenly looking to him for further elaboration. He pushed out a thin stream of air through his nose. “The kid was terrified of everything from strange noises to flashing lights and anything so much as resembling a uniform. The games… It was a way for her to make him feel safer.”

 

Everyone glanced at one another, weary, troubled eyes meeting their match in every flickering gaze. Ben sipped his fifth coffee in the past two hours. Chris chewed the inside of his lip, then lifted his eyes to give Hank a tentatively hopeful look.

 

“Do you think there’s any chance he’s hiding somewhere? He was bundled up good on the CCTV footage… It hasn’t been too cold this week. Gregory said hide-and-seek was Tommy’s favorite game.”

 

“What difference does it make if we can’t find him?” asked North, very obviously not happy with how things had been handled up to this point. If no one else was going to ask difficult questions, she seemed perfectly ready to. She was willing enough to be part of the solution, but not afraid to step on anyone’s fragile egos. “If he’s injured, like the evidence suggests, he’s compromised. He’ll need blue blood, maybe even biocomponents. We don’t know if Ava’s turned off his ambient temperature sensors, he could be freezing, afraid of everything that moves.”

 

And that was the grim reality of it. Tommy could be running scared, with not a single person out there he could trust, and no way to get home safe. Worse yet, he could have tried, and died trying.

 

“Did John say anything useful when you met him?” Simon asked, having been quiet for some time now. Perhaps he’d been thinking things through, sorting through the most logical approach - the only thing Hank knew about the guy was what he’d seen with his own eyes: that he was of a practical outlook, down to earth and far away enough from any kind of soaring ideals to keep the rest of the Jericho leaders grounded in reality. As for his background, not even Connor seemed to have an idea.

 

Hank checked his notes. They said depressingly little of the android himself, apart from ‘quiet, scared (of us or the Mrs?)’ and ‘glitching??’. He relayed as much, though not in so many words. “Nope. He seemed spooked… There’s something... _ off _ about him. He seemed detached and hyper aware at the same time. We could barely get ten words out of him, between us.”

 

Ben made a noise at the back of his throat. “Like pulling teeth. Not the cooperative kind.”

 

Hank huffed, mouth slanting in a cynical smirk aimed at his detective friend. “All that charm, wasted on the ungrateful masses.”

 

“It’s true!” Ben protested, crossing his arms over his chest. “‘Yes’, ‘no’, ‘I don’t know’? That’s not how you spell ‘cooperative’. If you ask me, he’s a few software updates short of being fully cognizant. Didn’t Banks say something about an accident?”

 

The room fell so silent you could hear the ventilation system in the background. Hank, Chris and Tina gave a collective groan; the androids present opted not to comment. Simon lifted his chin as if to soldier on, get back in there, the way humans sometimes seemed to lift with a lungful of fresh air. Simon did not breathe, as a rule; unlike Connors Mark I and II, unlike Markus, he had done away with those habits a long time ago. What’s the use of pretending, when surrounded by one’s peers, after all. But if this was going to work, they were all going to have to do some collective adjusting.

 

“You’re saying he seemed to be glitching or otherwise compromised?”

 

“Nice save, Si,” said Hank, and got up to refill his mug, while Ben started backpedaling with all his might.

 

“Well, uh…something like that, sure...?”

  
  


***

  
  


“Johnny, darling? Could you come help me get the baking tins down from the cupboard? My knee’s acting up, I don’t like to risk the step ladder...”

 

There was no response for a little while, then just as Laura thought she’d have to go looking for him, John appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She smiled, gesturing for him to come in, not to be shy, never be shy. “There you are! I’m in the mood for apple pie! How about it?”

 

“...okay,” said Johnny, subdued and timid. He’d been struggling with mood swings ever since the accident, poor dear, at it was getting increasingly difficult to reach him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smiling. The past week had been the worst yet, he’d been so morose and quiet she was seriously beginning to worry.

 

“Tell you what,” she all but cooed, trying not to be too much of a mother hen, but... If only she could make him feel better, surely things would go back to how they once were?

 

“-- Why don’t you get the big tin for me, the fluted one, and we’ll make it together. You can make sure I don’t miss anything in the recipe. You’re so much better at following the wretched things than me.”

 

Johnny nodded, and reached up high to get the biggest, fluted pie tin they had. Together they prepared the apples, Laura peeling, John coring and dicing. She didn’t trust herself with a knife these days, not when the medicine made her feel so shaky. If she really focused, she could keep her hands steady, but it was a moot point even to try unless the pills had started wearing off. Or if they hadn’t kicked in yet. No, better let John handle things. The speed peeler was plenty dangerous enough for her.

 

A little while later, Alfred came home to the wafting scent of freshly made coffee and apple pie with a buttery, flaky crust. Of course, Laura didn’t know all the sugar was substituted for salt. Johnny didn’t say a word as she served him a big slice.

 

Not that it mattered. There were worse things in this world than salted apple pie. Everything was spoiled, nothing would ever be the same again. Alfred said their daughter was dead, and the grandson they didn’t know about was missing. An android boy named Thomas, who loved nothing more than story time, and playing hide-and-go-seek.

  
  


***

 

That same evening, the Jericho leaders left the station with a clearer view of the case, or cases, as it stood. They would go out into the android community, to speak with anyone who wanted to speak, as they had access like the Detroit Police could never have: they knew where to find androids still in hiding, and now they knew the right questions to ask. Hank had been right to bring them in, but Connor could tell he wasn’t happy about it.

 

It had been a month now, of seeming endless body parts put together at random - or what seemed random at first glance, and the human brain, like an android’s quantum processing unit, always looked for patterns. Not finding a pattern when expecting it could be taxing on the mind, which was a concept Connor was more than familiar with. He gave his would’ve-been-successor a wordless look, and Mark II nodded. He’d hold the fort, for the time being.

 

“Hank?” Connor nudged his partner, who looked at him, forehead all a-wrinkled. “A moment?”

 

Hank nodded, a glint of perplexity in his eyes. Connor led the way to the break room, all of fifteen steps from the conference room. Hank’s skeptical eyes followed him as he popped a cuppa ramen into the microwave, he didn’t even have to turn his head to look. It was all there on his 3D grid: Hank standing impatient by one of the tiny tables and bar stools, mouth halfway open, no doubt to ask him what the fuck he’s doing, and/or tell him to fuck off.

 

Away with the grid, and Connor turned his head to look over his shoulder just as Hank proved him right.

 

“What the holy shit do you think you’re doing? Making ramen? We don’t have time for fuckin’  _ noodles _ !”

 

Connor smiled. Bingo; got it in one. “You need a break, or you’re going to put your foot through the wall. Or, more likely, fracture several bones trying, and you won’t do any actual damage. That’ll only make you even more cranky.”

 

Hank was well and truly shut up. His mouth opened and closed, and opened again. “...is this an intervention against my low blood sugar?”

 

“Yup.” The smile on Connor’s lips turned into a grin. The microwave dinged, positively delighted with proceedings; he set the cup down in front of his partner, complete with a set of chopsticks from the drawer. Then he got out his walkman from his inside jacket pocket. Hank watched as he uncoiled the pristine white wires and popped one earbud each into Hank’s left ear and his right; he scrolled through the ever growing playlist, and picked out just the right album, and the perfect song.

 

It blasted through the earbuds, startling Hank into a surprised jolt. He started laughing. “Meshuggah? And-- freakin’--  _ ramen _ ?!”

 

“Yup,” Connor echoed himself, and pressed a kiss to Hank’s bearded, smiling face.

 

Hank sighed, stabbing the noodles with his chopsticks. He might be shaking his head, but his eyes were bright, full of renewed energy. “You’re the best. Ya dork.”

 

Connor leaned into him in the intimation of a hug without the actual arm action. Mission successful. Now if only the rest of their objectives could be so easily checked off the list…

 

“We’ll find him,” murmured Hank between wolfing down his cartonful of starchy goodness (Connor imagined his oral cavity to have heat-proof lining, like asbestos. Sometimes he’d watch Hank eat just to marvel at it. This was one such occasion).

 

“He’s out there, somewhere. We won’t stop until we find him.”

 

It wasn’t entirely clear if Hank was talking about Thomas, or whoever was behind the mutilations, the murder of Ava Wells, but working off his experience with the man, Connor was 99.8% certain he was talking about both. At least they had something they’d lacked in the weeks before: they had backup, and they had leads to pursue that would hopefully point them in the right direction, get them where they needed to be.

 

Connor nodded. They had to find him. “You ready?”

 

The smile on Hank’s lips was one of gratitude. He leaned in to press a small kiss to Connor’s lips, and brushed his cheek with his calloused thumb. “Yeah. Back to work.”

 

And back to work they went, neither one of them aware just how close they had come to the edge of madness, just how closely they’d brushed the truth behind it all. It lay lurking like the Bogey Man itself, out there, in the dark, waiting for its victims to relax once more.


	6. Thomas and the Boy Who Used to Live There; or, Hiding in Plain Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever happened to young Thomas after his mother was brutally killed? How much longer before someone in charge thinks the team has used up too many precious resources and time?
> 
> Things are drawing to a close, but when you're stuck right in the middle of it, it's hard to see the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is coming, possibly sooner than anticipated. Stay tuned for more...

* * *

 

 

Thomas was terribly, terribly afraid. Not only was he lonely and scared, but he was trapped in a big, old house with two old strangers, and though his mom had tried to convince him strangers weren’t necessarily  _ bad…  _ he knew better. Ava hadn’t seen the world like he had, she didn’t really know how dangerous strangers truly were, or the things they could do to you if they caught you. But these two weren’t just scary, they were  _ strange _ . He didn’t know why, but the entire house had him on edge, in a way the soldiers never did. The soldiers were obvious threats, open, clearly visible: he  _ knew _ they wanted to kill him, like they killed everyone who weren’t like them. But Mr Alfred and Laura were...unsettling. He didn’t feel safe with them, not at all. So he hid, whenever he could sneak away, and he’d stay hidden until one of them came looking for him. It was better to come out of hiding then. Alfred especially didn’t like it when he hid for too long. Thomas imagined the old man had never played hide-and-go-seek as a boy… If he’d ever been a boy, to begin with.

 

At least he wasn’t alone, exactly. Johnny would talk to him every now and then, to guide him, tell him things, that he should call Laura ‘mother’, she liked that, but Alfred was ‘sir’, and nothing but. He said never to question Laura, or correct her, or laugh at the things she said, even if they were very silly. She could take it the wrong way, and get very upset. He said that sometimes it was best to hide in plain sight, so Alfred didn’t have to get angry - and to ‘ _ Never go upstairs, whatever you do. Never!’ _

 

Thomas trusted Johnny. He had kind eyes, just like Ava. Just like Laura, but unlike Alfred, whose eyes were flashing with pain and anger, and you could never be sure of his moods. He did as Johnny had told him, from the very first time they met: hide in plain sight. It’s what clever boys do.

 

And so, Thomas sat very still by the kitchen table. He sat, and he sat, and he sat, and let his eyes unfocus, while Laura’s cries echoed through the house from the upstairs bedroom.

 

Johnny was there in the reflection of the window pane; he was upside down in the shiny concave of the dessert spoon; in the black, cold coffee, shining like an oil slick. He seemed worried.

 

_ “There, there,” _ he said, soft and gentle, soothing.  _ “There, there…” _

 

Thomas sucked the inside of his bottom lip between his teeth. He could still taste the apple pie all these long hours later, like a bad memory. He hadn’t moved from the table since this morning. “I’m not sad,” he told Johnny in a whisper. “I just don’t like the noises.”

 

_ “It’s okay,” _ Johnny whispered back.  _ “Me either. I could make the noises go away, if you want?” _

 

Thomas nodded; Johnny lifted his hand to the back of his ear, carefully pushing at the audio decoder to make it pop out. Thomas sighed as static filled his head, and closed his fingers over the decoder very carefully, just like Johnny told him to.

 

They went side by side across the hall, into the library, which was Johnny’s favorite room in the entire house. They sat in front of the fireplace with one of Johnny’s books, and he read the words like he’d read them a thousand times before.

 

_ “...’Etymology. (Supplied by a late consumptive usher to a grammar school)...’” _

 

“What’s etymo...etymology?”

 

_ “It’s a name for how words themselves were born. Where they come from, who spoke them first, if they’ve evolved from an older one… Take Thomas, for instance. It’s a very, very old name, meaning twin. It’s Aramaic.” _

 

Thomas frowned, running his finger down the edge of the book. It looked very old. It smelled old, too. Dusty. Papery. It reminded him of Ava. “But I don’t have a twin. It’s just me.”

 

_ “That’s okay. It’s just an example. Do you want me to continue?” _

 

Thomas nodded, and Johnny went on, reading from the old tome of ‘ _ Moby Dick; or, The Whale’ _ .  _ “‘The pale Usher - threadbare in coat, heart, body and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality’.” _

 

“What does your name mean?” Asked Thomas, his mind lingering on the subject of meanings. He’d never thought of names that way before, that they could mean something other than what they were: that names weren’t just names, and words could mean entirely different things than you thought they did.

 

_ “John?” _ Said Johnny, his voice gentle. He didn’t seem to mind the questions.  _ “It’s a very, very old name. It comes from the Hebrew name Yohanan. It means ‘Graced by Yah’. Graced by God.” _

 

For the space of a breath or two, or five, as Thomas wasn’t counting, he was quiet, mulling this over. Then he came to a conclusion. “I like yours better. Even if it doesn’t fit.”

 

Johnny didn’t disagree: Thomas didn’t technically have a twin, and with recent events in mind, it was highly debatable whether Johnny was ever graced by God. Even if he once was, it seemed a distant memory now.

 

Johnny continued reading, while the flickering, warm glow of the dancing flames gave the old, yellowed pages a warmer hue. In a little while, Thomas fell asleep, dreaming of whales, and the significance of the letter ‘h’, and of the lowly grub-worm of a sub-sub-librarian, and of Ishmael, who went to sea to stop himself from knocking hats off people’s heads in the streets in sheer frustration.

 

More than anything, he dreamed of Ava, and the gaping hole she had left in the world, now that she was gone.

 

***

 

On the other side of town, farther up north, far away from the bright lights and bustle of the innermost city center, Hank wasn’t dreaming much of anything. It had been another long shift at the ol’ grind, one long shift after another and not a lot of results to show for it, and though he’d prefer to be working through the night, he was wasting time, whiling away the minimum of five hours downtime that his goddamn nanny-for-a-partner insisted on. To make matters worse, even Fowler thought it was a good idea.

 

And what a great idea it was, to lie awake in bed, with your aforementioned nanny-for-a-partner’s arm as your pillow, staring up at the shadowy shapes dancing across the ceiling. He could be working! He could be making himself useful! But  _ no _ . Heaven forfend! Goodness gracious, God forbid he go more than thirty hours without a wink!

 

As if he could sleep on command. What a load of--

 

“Can’t sleep?”

 

Hank cut his eyes to the left to glare at his partner in the dark. Not that he could actually see shit with the blinds closed and curtains drawn, but it was like a reflex. His eyes seemed constantly drawn to the...the...complete  _ nuisance _ of a man: he’d always seek him out, whatever his moods, wanting or needing visual confirmation. It had become a recurring thing since last December. He’d need to work on his territorial tendencies, or his need to control stuff, but...it wasn’t exactly a priority. It’d been almost a year since the shooting, and the closer they got the more he felt his scars, physical and otherwise. This time of year was bad enough for him without counting the days until December 30th, but… Whaddaya gonna do? And to top it off, it was only six days to go until the worst holiday of the year. Whoo-fuckin’-hoo. Halloween. Crime went through the roof, drunk people did stupid drunk shit, and all the crazies came out to play… Cole had loved it. The costumes, the candy, the ghost stories, creepy movies watched from the safety of your couch, surrounded by family… Good times had by all...

 

No, Halloween was not one of Hank’s favorite times of the year. And yet… It would be Connor’s first Halloween. Hank knew his buddies at work had talked about throwing a party of some sort, with Spilane and Nichols stoking the flames of enthusiasm all over the station. They’d been talking about fuckin’  _ costumes, _ and no one seemed to think it was a horrible idea but him. Fucking  _ costumes _ …

 

“Hank.”

 

Hank made a face, and sighed. “ _ No _ , I can’t sleep. What the fuck else is new?”

 

The bed shifted under Connor’s weight as he rolled onto his side, nuzzling at Hank’s temple. Both of them wriggled a bit, scooching into a cosier arrangement of limbs. Connor’s breath was warm and cool at the same time, brushing the skin of his neck. Warm - out, cool - in. Neither one of them had been getting much sleep lately, and not for any of the right reasons.

 

“I know,” whispered Connor’s voice through the dark. What else was there to say?

 

Well… There was one thing…

 

Hank rolled his eyes at the ceiling, mentally steeling himself for what was arguably the most difficult three words in all the languages of the world.

 

“I’m sorry. I’ve been a complete asshat lately.”

 

Connor relaxed into him, letting his arm rest heavier across his chest. “You’re exaggerating for effect again…” he murmured, or drawled. The smile on his lips was perfectly audible, making it difficult to stay glum. Damn him.

 

“Fuck off.”

 

Connor chuckled, sending warm puffs of mirth dancing over his clavicles. “Not likely,” he said. “But I accept your apology. Not that it’s necessary. Even without the stress of the case, this is a difficult time of year for you.”

 

“That’s called ‘making excuses’,” Hank groaned, turning his head to breathe in the unmistakable scent of Connor’s hair. He smelled like home - not fresh from the factory, not machine, not ‘plastic’, just  _ home _ . “Don’t make excuses for me, babe. I’ve been a prick, I know it, and I’m sorry. That’s it.”

 

“Right. Well, then. I forgive you.”

 

The pair of them gave a synchronized, deep sigh. It was the end of that discussion, but there was still that other thing on Hank’s mind. Their investigation, the cases upon cases of missing, mutilated androids, and now this: the murder of Ava Wilson, the disappearance of her android boy, Thomas…

 

“It’s only a matter of time before they shut us down,” he said, murmured over the top of Connor’s dark head of hair.

 

“It’s been twenty days since the first mass grave was discovered.”

 

“Mmmhn. Over a month since androids started going missing  _ en masse _ .”

 

Connor shifted against him, reaching over to turn the bedside lamp on low - just enough so Hank could see him as he sat up in bed. Neither one of them were ready to aim for r.e.m sleep. “Everything seems to be pointing in the direction of the Banks family,” he said, but the way his three perfectly parallel frown lines crinkled his forehead told Hank they were on the same page, same chapter and verse.

 

“‘Seems to’ being the key. It’s too easy. Isn’t it? Or am I being paranoid? All this evidence piling up, and I still feel like we’re getting nowhere.”

 

Connor nodded. “The answer is right there in front of us. I feel it, too. We’re missing something, and we’re running out of time.”

 

Hank sighed, pushing at the mattress to sit up, lean back against the headboard. “And the Banks name carries weight in this city. We ruffle too many feathers, I bet you we won’t have until the  _ end of the month _ to figure this out, we’ll be forced to move on. Fuckin’  _ politics _ ...”

 

Knowing better than to argue with Hank’s gut instincts, Connor opted for a more diplomatic approach. He cupped the side of Hank’s grumpy face and kissed his cheek. “I’ll make tea, with lots of milk and honey, and we can listen to music until we crash - or get back to work. Hm?”

 

“Eugh--  _ we _ make tea, you mean. I’ll get the pot started, you rifle through the tea selection. Nothing  _ herbal _ , thank you.”

 

“You got it, baby.”

 

Hank groaned, but the face splitting grin on Connor’s face made him feel just a little bit better, despite everything. Too bad it couldn’t last.

 

***

 

_ Hank was right, of course. The very next day, October 25, Fowler got a call from the Chief of Police, saying she’d had a conversation with the Mayor himself. The Banks family were off limits, and to even suggest that any member of their esteemed kith and kin were connected to anything criminal, let alone so sinister as dismemberment, decapitation, exsanguination of awakened androids and  _ murder, _ of their own daughter no less… Well. Fowler never did say what the Chief had told him, word for word, but that was the end of it. There had been no new reports of missing androids for well over a week, and the coroner’s office was still at liberty to restore the recovered androids if and when time allowed for it. The bottom line was we’d wasted time and resources (doing what, I wonder? Misinterpreting evidence?), and we’d better get our shit back together, and fast. _

 

_ Just like that, Ava Wells slipped through our fingers. She was assigned to another homicide investigator, and we had to hand over all the evidence we’d collected. _

 

_ It didn’t matter that Fowler was right in pointing out we had a still growing backlog of cases not related to the so-called Friday the 14th abductions. He wasn’t wrong in pointing out we’d hit a wall - without Ms Wells, we didn’t have much physical evidence. When she was taken out of the equation, all we had were the recovered androids (who may, or may not, be restored to their original composition depending on the resources of the city morgue - bull. shit.), and their connection to the D3C and Homeless Shelter. _

 

_ Hank was furious. We all were, but with the memory of his own son’s death at the forefront of his mind, the case of Ava Wells and young Thomas hit him just a bit too close to home. He wasn’t ready to give up. He couldn’t give up. _

 

_ (It’s one of the many reasons I love him. He is color blind, in the best sense of the word: not because it is politically correct, or because it looks better on paper, but because he just doesn’t give a shit.) Thomas was a lost boy, a child all alone in the world, and that’s the only thing Hank cared about - not how he was made, or what family he belonged to, or the color of his blood. _

 

_ We all felt the same: every last one of them mattered. What had been done to them was horrific, and if we let it go just because someone with political power thought they mattered less than one of his supporters… well. We’d be as rotten to the core as the system itself. _

 

_ Hank reached out to his old Red Ice taskforce, to his second-in-command, as such, from back in the day - Rory Callaghan was a grade A shithead, Hank informed me, but there was no one he’d rather have on his side in a fight. And this was a fight - against the clock, against department regulations, against public opinion, you name it. _

 

_ It was a fluke, that is the term, isn’t it? We’d stopped by the nearest Java for a cup of coffee and a bagel, middle of the night, going through the case with Callaghan and his new partner, Wilcox, when him and Hank went silent, staring each other in the eye, then shouting out ‘RED ICE!!!’ to the entire diner. Good thing the place was mostly deserted… _

 

_ Red Ice. That was it. That was the monster that had been staring us right in the face all this time, just barely visible out of the corner of one’s eye. Callaghan and his team had seen a mysterious spike in Red Ice related crime in the past month. There’d been a dip since the so-called emancipation of androids, the abolishing of the Android Act in the spring. People weren’t buying androids like they used to, and as a result they weren’t throwing them away like they used to. CyberLife had taken precautions to safeguard biocomponents, especially Thirium, seeing as it wasn’t simply a commodity anymore, but a vital necessity for all awakened androids. _

 

_ As a result, red ice cooks had been forced to go digging for discarded androids in the junkyards - not ideal in any sense of the word, and not economically sound. There had been attempted B&Es of android supplies stores, but the gist of it was this brave new world was proving to be too much for the drug bosses and their assorted ‘employees’. Getting enough Thirium was becoming a time consuming hassle, and the less they could produce, the less lucrative the business. Not only that, but it was a case of supply and demand. _

 

_ Perhaps this was someone’s bright idea of getting enough blue blood, quick and easy, thinking no one would miss these homeless shelter graduates. It wasn’t as if people could tell androids apart, after all… With CyberLife’s limited set of face molds, used across models and types, humans struggled a great deal with correctly identifying individual androids. _

 

_ We needed evidence to prove it, but it was a theory we could all see just a bit too easily - that somewhere out there, in the dark, young Thomas was held in the unforgiving grips of indifference. He was very possibly broken, through no fault of his own doing, separated from his life, his loved ones, in a way I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Lost. Abandoned. Moments away from becoming one more casualty of the drug industry. _

 

_ And yet, even if that were true, it didn’t explain what Hank called the Frankenstein Factor. Why take them apart, only to put them back like...jigsaw pieces taken from different puzzle sets? _

 

_ Why  _ bother _? _

 

_ (Back then, I didn’t stop to think about it, but looking back I think it’s...unnerving, to think the only time any of the news outlets touched the case was when the mass graves were found. Androids go missing, no big deal, that isn’t newsworthy. A mass grave, now, that’s juicy. That’s something you can sink your teeth into, and so close to Halloween. The city was appalled...for about a week. The story got old within days of the second mass grave, and when the media covered the murder of Ava Wells, her son wasn’t so much as mentioned. No one cared about Thomas - just like no one cared about the mutilated androids anymore. They were old news, and old news don’t get clicks, or hits, or news feed subscribers…) _

 

_ I told Markus, who relayed the new plan to the others. To use Hank’s words, we’d investigate the living shit out of the Community Center and Homeless Shelter, and the Banks family, and fuck what anyone said. Someone was responsible for all this unfathomable cruelty, and we had to find them, prove it, and serve up the evidence to the Mayor himself if we had to. No one was getting away with it, no matter their family name or how tight they were with those in power, or how much old money they had lining their pockets. _

 

_ Before the 26th of October, we’d been investigating strangers, the lives of people with whom we’d likely never cross paths with again. But then...Simon went missing - disappeared off the face of the earth, as if evaporated like a fine mist of foreboding. Markus was beside himself with (stoic) worry, North was a ball of white hot rage, Josh nearly imploded from all the talk of violence - and no one had any answers. Where had he gone, why, for what purpose? Who was the last to see him, and where? He’d made no indication he was going to divert from his routine. But he was one of the original leaders - he only had routines as far as our arrangements. We changed our rosters, our hideouts, everything, on a weekly basis, and sometimes more often. There was no such thing as getting into the habit of things, if you were part of the Jericho community. _

 

_ It seemed very simple, looking back. Just follow the evidence, see where it leads, and act accordingly. October 26 proved us all wrong. Then it wasn’t simply work, anymore. It got personal. _

 

_ And then, as cause and effect would have it, things got complicated. _


End file.
